Arnold Zwicky's Blog
Arnold Zwicky's Blog
Arnold Zwicky
A blog mostly about language from Arnold Zwicky, Adjunt Professor of Linguistics, Stanford University.
Latest Posts
Yesterday’s installment was on blood pressure (fabulous again today) and potassium level (requiring blood tests, so who knows?). Today, it’s flaking skin and diarrhea. The first is something of a mystery; the second turns out to be...
A calendrical reminder, from my 5/4/24 posting on this blog: today is (at least) three holidays, one deadly serious, two entertaining. … Four Dead in Ohio Day (remembering the 1970 Kent State shootings), Star Wars Day [May the Force be...
Explorations of the channels on my Comcast cable subscription led me to a big block of “music choice” channels in the very high numbers, where I (with my basic cable subscription) don’t normally venture. And there I found channel 942,...
In this cartoon from the latest (5/4/26) New Yorker, Ms. Duck and Ms. Rabbit mourn their versatile paramour, Mr. Shimmer the duck-rabbit (or rabbit-duck); see my 8/24/25 posting “Shimmer is both a floor wax AND a dessert topping”, and...
Resting yesterday alongside 819 Ramona St. on an afternoon walk, my helper Isaac and I noted once again that the building started life as Palo Alto’s first Black church. Black meaning African American, one of a number of uses for the...
rabbit rabbit rabbit to inaugurate the month of May — Mayday celebrating labor, spring (new growth, rebirth, fertility), and romance, in a variety of ways (parades, dancing, maypoles, bonfires, public displays of affection) From Hana...
(plenty of references to a wide rage of sexual practices, mostly between men (though not in street language), so dubious for kids and not for the sexually modest) A e-mail ad today for a new t-shirt from the Peachy Kings shop: the SIR...
tiger tiger tiger for ultimate April (the rabbits rush in tomorrow, bearing muguets pour le premier mai), with my response to a posting on Facebook by John McIntyre yesterday Hail! Bright Jeremiah, hail! fill ev’ry heart! With love of...
On this day (penultimate April) in history, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train arrived in Cleveland OH, following his assassination on 4/14/1865. As described by Tim Evanson on FB today: The coffins of President Abraham...
I had somehow missed this Wikipedia page until I stumbled on it this morning: Zwicky is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Arnold Zwicky (born 1940), American linguist Fay Zwicky (1933–2017), Australian poet and...
(about a family of vulgar slang expressions, so streams of raunchy talk about sex: totally not for kids or the sexually modest) With apologies to the Rodgers and Hammerstein of Carousel, notes on to bust a nut ‘to ejaculate, orgasm’ and...
Playing on my Apple Music when I woke this morning (4/27): the trio and chorus “They shall be as happy as they’re fair” from Act V of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Z. 629, with its forward-driving syncopations accompanying the...
(about sexual acts, especially between men, and also about excrement as an accompaniment to sexual acts, all described in vulgar street language, so this posting is massively unsuitable for kids or the sexually modest) Two messy...
(lots of discussion of men’s bodies in street language and similar references to sex between men, so not for kids or the sexually modest) Stylish? Or in costume? There can be a fine line here, often crossed flagrantly — in my opinion, at...
Yesterday’s (4/24) Zippy strip has our Pinhead singing the praises of everyday stationery supplies, in particular the cylinders (now usually made of plastic) used to convey rolled-up sheets of material with printing or designs on them:...