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
(a posting that clearly will not to be to everyone’s taste) From the Titan Men Store (an adjunct to the gay porn studio), among a huge variety of silicone sex toys currently on sale, this cute little item: (#1) The 6″ probe (in pink and...
Aric Olnes on Facebook on 3/15: I just saw Martha Wash opening for Boy George & Culture Club in Sacramento on Friday night [3/13] and she closed her set with the entire Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus behind her singing “It’s Raining Men.“...
Briefly noted. From my 8/9/23 posting “The states of matter: coconut X”: I discovered the melting point of coconut X several summers ago. My air-conditioning aims to cool things to 80 F, so when it gets hot outside, inside my condo the...
As a Z-person, I was immediately pulled into Bert Vaux’s query to his “British and Antipodean friends” on Facebook this morning: Bert is collecting examples of -Z(ZA) nicknames (what I’ll call znicknames), like Baz for Barry and Hazza...
An example on the hoof, complete with the libelous myth of gay recruitment: “These homos are interested in recruiting new members,” Rev. Benjamin Bubar, leader of the fundamentalist Christian Civic League of Maine, told the Bangor Daily...
In the Wayno / Piraro Bizarro for 3/16/26, two characters from Disney animation commiserate in a bar: Dopey (the least of the Seven Dwarfs in Disney’s telling of the Snow White tale from the Brothers Grimm) with a mug of beer, Goofy (the...
A follow-up to my 3/16 posting “The breakfast walk”, in which I looked at a few of the businesses and offices on the walk from 722 Ramona St., between Forest and Homer (my house) to 566 Emerson St., at the northwest corner at Hamilton...
Briefly noted. In an earlier posting today — “El Palo Alto” — I wrote: the elegant Nobu Hotel Epiphany … preserves (from the earlier Casa Olga hotel) the 6-story-tall mosaic mural of El Palo Alto, the coast redwood tree for which the...
On the heels of my 3/14 posting “Seeking a penguin caption” (in which the birds are ubiquitous), there come two penguin cartoons in the April 2026 issue of Funny Times: one by Bill DeMain in which the birds are iconic, one by Vaughan...
In yesterday’s posting “The breakfast walk”, one notable feature of that walk was what is now the elegant Nobu Hotel Epiphany, which preserves (from the earlier Casa Olga hotel) the 6-story-tall mosaic mural of El Palo Alto, the coast...
From 722 Ramona St., between Forest and Homer (my house) to 566 Emerson St., at the northwest corner at Hamilton (the Palo Alto Creamery, a standard place for Saturday breakfast with my daughter Elizabeth in the old days, along a route...
Today: a significant day in my personal life for many years, and also a significant day in world history. — March 15th was spring Removal Day — Higashi (East) removal — when (for about 10 years) Jacques and I left Palo Alto (after winter...
The New Yorker cartoon caption contest in the 3/6/25 issue features one of my totem animals, the penguin. Well, quite a lot of penguins: The three finalists for the caption will be announced in the 3/30 issue The caption — what the woman...
Following up on yesterday’s (3/12) posting “Masculine flamboyance” about the political commentator Jon Favreau’s presentation of himself in an advertisement for Crooked Media’s Pod Save America show: as an impish hunk: impish via a...
The philosopher Bill Lycan (an old friend, once my colleague at Ohio State, a prolific writer, and an enormously entertaining person) came to my mind when a friend was amazed that I managed to write at least one essay a day — every day...