February 5, 2013
Flaming Carrot Comics is a comic book series by cartoonist Bob Burden. The title character first appeared in ‘Visions’ #1, a magazine published by the Atlanta Fantasy Fair in 1979. ‘Flaming Carrot’ can be seen as a parody of various aspects of the superhero genre (though his origin story is much the same as that of Don Quixote).
‘The Flaming Carrot’ origin states that ‘having read 5,000 comics in a single sitting to win a bet, this poor man suffered brain damage and appeared directly thereafter as — the Flaming Carrot!’ Carrot, who lives in Palookaville, a neighborhood of Iron City, has staved off at least three alien invasions, a Communist take over, flying dead dogs, the Man in the Moon, Death itself, and a cloned horde of evil marching Hitler’s boots. Possessing no real super powers, the Carrot wins the day through sheer grit, raw determination, blinding stupidity, and bizarre luck.
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February 4, 2013
A double entendre is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Typically one of the interpretations is rather obvious whereas the other is more subtle. The more subtle of the interpretations may have a humorous, ironic, or risqué purpose. It may also convey a message that would be socially awkward, or even offensive, to state directly (the Oxford English Dictionary describes a double entendre as being used to ‘convey an indelicate meaning’).
A double entendre may exploit puns to convey the second meaning. Double entendres generally rely on multiple meanings of words, or different interpretations of the same primary meaning. They often exploit ambiguity and may be used to introduce it deliberately in a text. Sometimes a homophone (i.e. a different spelling that yields the same pronunciation) can be used as a pun as well as a ‘double entendre’ of the subject.
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February 4, 2013
A paraprosdokian [par-uh-pros-doke-ee-uhn] is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis.
‘Paraprosdokian’ comes from Greek for ‘against ‘expectation.’ Canadian linguist and etymology author William Gordon Casselman argues that, while the word is now in wide circulation, it is not a term of classical (or medieval) Greek or Latin rhetoric, but a late 20th century neologism. However, it occurs—with the same meaning—in Greek rhetorical writers of the 1st century BCE and the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
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January 28, 2013
Mary Roach is an American author, specializing in popular science. She currently resides in Oakland, California. To date, she has published four books: ‘Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers’ (2003), ‘Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife’ (2005), ‘Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex’ (2008) and ‘Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void’ (2010). Roach was raised in Etna, New Hampshire.
She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wesleyan University in 1981. After college, Roach moved to San Francisco and spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor. She worked as a columnist, and also worked in public relations for a brief time. Her writing career began while working part-time at the San Francisco Zoological Society, producing press releases on topics such as elephant wart surgery.
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January 28, 2013
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex was written by Mary Roach in 2008. The book follows the winding history of science and its exploration of human sexuality, going back as far as Aristotle and finally ending with recent discoveries about the origination and anatomy of the female orgasm. Throughout, Mary Roach provides a humorous and often very personal view—both as a participant and observer—of humans, scientists, animals, and sex machines.
Of the book’s numerous accounts, Roach discusses artificial insemination of sows in Denmark, the notorious history of sex machines, as well as much discussion and commentary on Kinsey’s notorious attic sex experiments. Her footnotes provide additional humor; as in a sentence which includes several DSM diagnoses listed as acronyms she adds ‘And from HAFD (hyperactive acronym formation disorder).’ In the book, Mary Roach describes a session in which she and her husband Ed volunteer to have sex in a 20-inch-diameter (510 mm) MRI tube in the interests of science. During the experiment, a doctor looks on, making suggestions, and finally telling Ed that he ‘may ejaculate now.’
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January 28, 2013
Buildering (also known as urban climbing, structuring, or stegophily) is the act of climbing on (usually) the outside of buildings and other artificial structures.
The word is a portmanteau, combining the word ‘building’ with the climbing term ‘bouldering’. If done without ropes or protection far off the ground, buildering may be dangerous. It is often practiced outside legal bounds, and is thus mostly undertaken at night-time.
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January 28, 2013
‘The little boy’s mother was off to market. She worried about her boy, who was always up to some mischief. She sternly admonished him, ‘Be good. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t eat all the cabbage. Don’t spill all the milk. Don’t throw stones at the cow. Don’t fall down the well.’ The boy had done all of these things on other market days. Hoping to head off new trouble, she added, ‘And don’t stuff beans up your nose!’
This was a new idea for the boy, who promptly tried it out.’ In our zeal to head off others’ unwise action, we may put forth ideas they have not entertained before. It may be wise not to caution against such possibilities. Prophylactic admonition may trigger novel mischief. As the popular saying goes, ‘don’t give ’em any ideas.’
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January 28, 2013
The First law of holes is a proverb attributed to British politician Denis Healey. It states, ‘If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.’
The meaning behind this proverb is that if you find yourself in an undesirable situation (‘the hole’), such as an argument with others, you should not ignore the situation or attempt to continue what you were doing (the ‘digging’), as it can make the situation worse. It has been cited numerous times by other politicians and in books.
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January 24, 2013
Animutation is a form of web-based computer animation, typically created in Adobe Flash and characterized by unpredictable montages of pop-culture images set to music, often in a language foreign to the intended viewers. It is not to be confused with manual collage animation (e.g., the work of Stan Vanderbeek and Terry Gilliam) which predates the Internet.
Animutation was ‘invented’ by American comedian Neil Cicierega. Cicierega claims to have been inspired by several sources, notably bizarre Japanese commercials (parodied, for example, by the Simpsons’ Mr. Sparkle), and Martin Holmström’s ‘Hatten är din’ Soramimi video (interpreting lyrics in one language as similar-sounding lyrics in another language) made for the ‘Habbeetik’ song by Azar Habib.
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January 23, 2013
Soramimi (‘mishearing’; [feigned] ‘deafness’) and Soramimi kashi (‘misheard lyrics’) are Japanese terms for homophonic translation of song lyrics, that is, interpreting lyrics in one language as similar-sounding lyrics in another language. A bilingual soramimi word play contrasts with a monolingual mondegreen (mishearing a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning).
And example of Soramimi kashi is the Moldovan band O-Zone’s song ‘Dragostea din tei’ (named from the words in the opening of the song), known on the web as the ‘Numa Numa’ song. The refrain of the original song (in Romanian) is: ‘Vrei să pleci dar nu mă, nu mă iei…’ (‘You want to leave but you don’t want, don’t want to take me…’) A soramimi version, from the Japanese flash animation ‘Maiyahi,’ translates these words as: ‘Bei sa, beishu ka, nomanoma-yei!’ (‘Rice, is it, rice wine, drink it drink it yeah!’)
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January 23, 2013
A mondegreen [mon-di-green] is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song. American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay ‘The Death of Lady Mondegreen,’ published in ‘Harper’s Magazine’ in 1954. The phenomenon is not limited to English, with examples cited by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in the Hebrew song ‘Háva Nagíla’ (‘Let’s Be Happy’), and in Bollywood movies.
A closely related category is ‘soramimi’—songs that produce unintended meanings when homophonically translated to another language. The unintentionally incorrect use of similar-sounding words or phrases in speaking is a malapropism. If there is a connection in meaning, it can be called an ‘eggcorn.’ If a person stubbornly sticks to a mispronunciation after being corrected, that can be described as ‘mumpsimus.’
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January 19, 2013
Stuff You Should Know, often abbreviated as SYSK, is a free podcast published by Discovery Communications via its HowStuffWorks website and hosted by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, both writers at HowStuffWorks. Clark has been a mainstay on the podcast since it began in 2008. The podcast, released every Tuesday and Thursday, educates listeners on a wide variety of topics, often using popular culture as a reference giving the podcast comedic value.
Episodes are normally around 30 minutes in length, although for more in-depth topics the show has run as long as an hour. Initial episodes were much shorter in duration, often less than 10 minutes. The podcast covers a variety of odd questions and topics, like ‘How Twinkies Work,’ ‘Do Zombies Exist?,’ ‘How Tickling works,’ and ‘How Albert Einstein’s Brain Worked.’
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