The Comics Curmudgeon

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Metapost: Greetings from Greater Metropolitan Roopville!

Ever-faithful reader True Fable sent me some pics this past weekend sporting his spiffy new cranberry Margo!Boxcar!Saturn shirt around the fine town of Roopville, both to illustrate willethompson’s handiwork and to prove that the city isn’t some kind of made-up place like “Shangri-La” or “Peoria”. I was so wrapped up in squiring my mom around that I was neglectful in posting them! So here they are. Pic two offers a close-up of the shirt, while pic three illustrates the architectural majesty of Roopville City Hall.

Sadly, this exclusive run of shirts is now in the hands of collectors only; perhaps you’ll be able to get one on eBay someday. However, there are plenty of Gail Martin shirts still available! There’s anecdotal evidence that these are beginning to arrive in the eager hands of the first buyers, so I demand that you all send me pictures post-haste!

On a largely unrelated but still awesome note, I received an e-mail the other day from faithful reader Vince with the subject “Your tax dollars are paying for 3-D Mark Trail”:

To commemorate their 200th anniversary (or some crap like that), the NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring have been giving away promotional cards. They’re card stock, about 5×8 inches, and on the front they have a bunch of information about NOAA. Boring so far. However, if you turn it over, you get this Mark Trail strip. If it looks blurry, that’s because it’s supposed to be read using these 3-D glasses.

Amazing as this concept is, I must sadly report that the 3-D strip does not in fact feature Mark’s Fist O’ Justice coming at you right out of the frame.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 08:43 pm and is filed under Mark Trail, metaposts.

366 responses to “Metapost: Greetings from Greater Metropolitan Roopville!”

Major Hooples Boarding House
August 1st, 2007 at 8:47 pm [Reply]

Instead of the link, here’s the news:

Lynn Johnston Squelches Rumors of Her Retirement

Kansas City, MO (08/01/2007) This letter by Lynn Johnston, creator of “For Better or For Worse” was mailed Monday, July 30, to her client list of newspapers:

Dear Editor:

Never did I suspect it would come to this. I have the honour of sharing a distinct complaint with Mark Twain, that rumours of my demise are being greatly exaggerated!

I announced in several interviews earlier this year that I would not be retiring and that For Better or For Worse would continue in a ³hybrid” form.

But rumours to the contrary continue

to fly, and I’d like to take a moment to put them to rest.

My vision for the hybrid cartoon is to move forward beginning this fall by mixing together new plots with remembrances of the Patterson family¹s history. For instance, readers will see Michael and his children as they are today, and also Michael and his parents as they were when the strip began.

So the strip will not end. I intend to keep the Patterson family around for many years to come.

Thank you for your continued support of For Better or For Worse.

Sincerely,

Lynn Johnston
Major Hooples Boarding House
August 1st, 2007 at 8:47 pm [Reply]

First time I made first, too!
Jamus The Bartender
August 1st, 2007 at 8:52 pm [Reply]

Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper’s Textbook
Today’s Lesson: How To Babysit Your Sister’s Kids And Keep Your Temper Without Resorting To Alcohol, But Don’t Rule It Out.

For Those Who Came In Late, as that weirdo with the purple tights and the striped ass likes to say: Despite appearances to the contrary, re: the post Cold War storyline, Dick Tracy was arrested for threatening to destroy San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge with a commandeered starship( The “Tarzana Nights”, flagship of Emperor Chennux’ interstellar fleet, now the primary mode of transport of Pope Josh Noodlefoot and his disciples the “Curmudgeonites” , about which more later), and it’s magmacannons. After a brief stay in the long-since closed Alcatraz Prison, Tracy was to be moved via armored van to Anchorage , Alaska where his trial is to take place. But fate, in the form of a recently displaced family of squirrels, would say otherwise. After the van overturned, Tracy overpowered his guards, that is to say, snuck away into the deep woods, where he disappeared for a number of days.
Meantime, Jamus The Bartender recently returned to the Tarzana Nights after a brief stopover with his lovely family, in order to recover from an encounter with an old feline flame whom he discovered playing the split ticket scam with some jackass bull who is nowhere as cool as I ever was, I mean, c’mon, what in hell could she be thinking….
Ah…yeah.
On with the story.

—————————————————————–
Greetings, Crimestopper’s . The ol’ detective is here, alive and well in the woods of….dammit, where the hell am I anyway? The woods of Northwestern Washington, at least according to this hippie i’ve got foot on top of. See, I ran into this cyber-coffee shop, asked real nice for some coffee, and to use the laptop, and now some goddamn hippie just HAS to call the local five-oh….I thought hippies hated cops….what’s up with that?
Anyway, I gotta make this quick….my first day out into the woods, I find a phone booth, as I can’t call that dumbass Jamus on my wrist radio, all I get is this bimbo cat lady alternately crying and touching herself in ways a gentleman does not talk about here, but it did offer the ol’ detective some solace from bein’ on the run, lemme tell you.
Anyhoo, I call up Tess….convince her it’s me and to come pick me up. She says no, and to go to hell, i’m a criminal now, yada yada yada. I says…okay, at least send me some cash from my stash…wouldn’t you know she’d spent it? Anyway,. the only way she’d send me any money now is to go visit her sister, who lives in Portland, and help babysit her kids. Me. Babysit kids.
Anyway, the next five minutes was a blur, but after I stopped slamming my head into the phone post, I agreed. Now…these kids of Tess’ sister are miserable, rotten little monsters…I mean, they’re lovely children who have some behavorial issues. My Aunt Fanny. Damn kids didn’t stop riding me from sunup to sundown…”Please read me a story…I wanna see your gun…is it true to threatened to destroy a major metropolitan area with a stolen spaceship” and on and on…
Oh. Fuck me. The goddamn cops are here…I gotta sign off and make for high ground…but not before I show mister hippie here my size elevens….
Dick Tracy
Jamus The Bartender
August 1st, 2007 at 9:03 pm [Reply]

Personal Log 8-1-07
Tarzana Nights Ship’s Bartender and Masseuse reporting.

After about a week’s solace in the northwoods of Wisconsin with the family, and babysitting my sister’s kids , and helping Mom with some household projects, I almost managed to forget about Cassandra.
Almost.
Still, True Fable showed us some pictures of his hometown of Roopville, which cheered us up .
I really like small towns. Which is strange, as I don’t live in one. I’d like to live in a place like Twin Peaks, but, you know, without all the murdering and the girls in plastic and that. I heard Josh had his mother over. At first , I thought we had to leave our families behind to spread the Word Of Snark, but Josh said that was plain crazy, they’re only comic strips, not worth leaving your family behind. Trotz was planning a trip to see her son defend his thesis, after all.
Ooo. We just got word. Our next stop is Bangalla and Skull Cave, home of the Man With The Striped Ass, the Ghost Who Walks his own self, the Phantom .
I’ll have to ask him why purple tights. I mean, you’d think brown or green would be better for blending in the jungle. And what’s up with the tights.
Maybe Cassandra will call…..why doesn’t she call? Goddammit. I’m getting upset about this. She never loved me. I gotta move on.
——-end transmission———
Jamus The Bartender
August 1st, 2007 at 9:04 pm [Reply]

4 That should say”What’s up with the stripes”
Jude
August 1st, 2007 at 9:05 pm [Reply]

Dang. Just think how much time I could have saved shaving each morning if the comic DID feature a Fist O’ Justice coming out of the frame at me.
katherine
August 1st, 2007 at 9:10 pm [Reply]

True Fable — is that Roopville GA? If so, we’re (not really) neighbors — I’m in Athens! Shout out to North Georgia, home of poultry and Mark Trail!
shane shiner
August 1st, 2007 at 9:26 pm [Reply]

Sounds like we’ll be getting our daily Foobshaft!
bats :[
August 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm [Reply]

Can we cut Lynn’s pay in half, if she’s going to regale us with 50% old crap in her “hybrid” strips?

And this isn’t one of those good “hybrids,” either, that reduces gas consumption…no doubt poop and pee and B.O. jokes will continue unabated.
willethompson
August 1st, 2007 at 9:42 pm [Reply]

TF, the shirt looks HOT! Or is it ‘haute?’

I get so confused….
Willy
August 1st, 2007 at 9:45 pm [Reply]

If I can’t buy a Margo!Boxcar!Saturn! shirt, can I make my own?
Rusty
August 1st, 2007 at 9:47 pm [Reply]

LJ has seen all the newpapers cutting zombie strips like BC and wants to nip the retirement talk in the bud. Although I seem to recall her talking about some health problem and the need to get out. I’m certain that the “new” strip will be entirely the work of her staff, just tieing together the “new” storylines of Mike looking at a photo album with the recycled material. Blehh.
Rooser the Bruiser
August 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

I did some work for NOAA recently and thought I was pretty hot stuff when they gave me a poster of the ocean floor and a certificate of commendation. Now I find out that the folks up in Silver Springs are passing out 3D Mark Trail cards? Man, I am so jealous.
Squid Countess
August 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

The Mark Trail strip has an octopus in it! Which is plenty close enough to a squid for me!

True Fable You look…you look kinda, er, like me. Or, I should say, like my dad’s side of the family. Are you descended from crazy Welsh miners? Actually, you’re a better looking version of us, but the resemblance is there.
Brown-eyed Girl
August 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm [Reply]

True Fable — You do believe in living dangerously. How are we supposed to keep you safe from Lynn Johnston if you keep teasing her with hot talk and cool pictures?
SecretMargo
August 1st, 2007 at 9:53 pm [Reply]

True Fable! You bear a shocking resemblance to one of my all-time favourite lesbians-who-look-like-hot-guys (so try not to be offended! All I mean is that you look like a hot guy! And so does this other person, who happens to be a woman!), JD Samson of Le Tigre! It may be the fantastic aviators. In other words: Lynn’s one lucky, non-retiring bitch, it seems.

To all dah LIO votahs last thread: y’all r off dah hoook!!!1!1 (TRL [RIP] fan text message syle props comin’ atcha there)

Also, even if only the people who posted that they voted really voted, it will probably represent a significant enough jump in page views to look like an earthquake on their readership graphs. Yay!

fizzy: Represent! You are very correct about the proper pronunciation of Spokane. Also sore spots in my area are the ways Oregon is mispronounced on the East Coast (especially in one memorable L&O episode in which the NY actress tasked with playing a tourist from there mangles it quite spectacularly) and Lake Chelan (it, too, rhymes with “She’s Ann” or “My man,” not “salon.” Yes, I’m looking at you, Frasier).

BUT, I actually hail from a little town to the north that is also unaccountably habitually mispronounced: Colville, which seems as innocous as Roopville or Springfield as it sits there blinking back up at me from the page like a cauldron-bound Siamese kittwin, but it for some reason becomes “COAL-ville” in the mouths of out-of-towner types (the real pronunciation is CAUL-ville)

Oof, glad to get that off my chest. Maybe at least The Notorious S.Q.B. will find my self-indulgent pet peeve-airing amusing?
Trotzenbonnie
August 1st, 2007 at 10:02 pm [Reply]

Even when faced with fairly convincing photographic evidence to the contrary, I remain steadfast in my belief that Roopville is a phantasmic place, a hallucinatory hamlet, a legendary locale, if you will – like Camelot or Brigadoon or Hooterville. Where else could True Fable possibly live?
Could the enigmatic essence of its nature be revealed in the fact that the quaint brick structure that serves as the seat of local government for this idyllic little burg needs bars on the windows? Is that the mayor peeking through the curtains? And why does the city hall sign need a yellow line to emphasize ‘Roopville’?
I don’t want answers, just more questions, thank you.
Poteet
August 1st, 2007 at 10:03 pm [Reply]

# 14 — BWAHAHAHA! Squid Countess, per the last thread, I do sympathize with your Chennux plush disappointment, but your posting describing it caused a major keyboard-water incident here.
SecretMargo
August 1st, 2007 at 10:08 pm [Reply]

17: I’m particularly amused that in the picture of the municipal structure in question taken from farther away, the sign seems to read “ROOPVILLE CITYWALL,” lending the landscape an even more surreal, perhaps-it’s-just-a-set vibe. AKA: just I’d always imagined it.
Gadge Cubic, Mole Preener
August 1st, 2007 at 10:10 pm [Reply]

Regarding today’s (DT)GT: You know, this one-legged boxing thing reminds me of a curious verbal situation that arose in my mind last week. There’s a woman who owns or manages a pet store near our house. She has only one leg, and she often will sit in her wheelchair in front of her store. Now, here’s the thing: the way she sits is hard to describe, because basically, if she had two legs you’d say she sits with her legs crossed. But she only has the one – and to say she’s sitting with her leg crossed doesn’t make sense, cuz there’s nothing in particular for it to be crossed over. So I’m thinking this is a conundrum of sorts.

Also: it would be very, very wrong to suggest that anyone do whatever it might take to prevent Lynn Johnston from continuing her demonic work, so I will make no such suggestion.

Finally, if anyone’s been amused by my forays into “humorous” “images,” I’ve designed an utterly non-comics-related t-shirt, whose mockup is visible here. It does not actually exist.

Back to the lurkin’ life for me – fie diddle-dee-dee.
ralph
August 1st, 2007 at 10:23 pm [Reply]

There’s nothing like a “neighborhood watch” warning sign under the “Welcome to Roopville” sign that really makes a traveler feel truly warm AND welcomed to this Fabled-as-True city. And on the neighborhood watch sign … is that Slylock Fox?
fizzy logic
August 1st, 2007 at 10:38 pm [Reply]

I agree, Trotzenbonnie, Roopville is much like Brigadoon and Camelot to me – mythical and elusive. The photos of True are smashing, though – I especially like the second one in all his sunny glory. Much like the conspiracy theorists that believe the moon landing was staged, I think Mr. Fable is trying to put one over on us though about Roopville. It’s a beautiful place in my mind, and perhaps in that tiny slice of reality, too.

SecretMargo – we could go on all day about the mispronunciations of things around here. I agree, Oregon is usually particularly offensively mangled. I think people try to say COLEville and COLEfax because they know they are small towns over there somewhere and aren’t really sure if they are the same or what. It’s so confusing! My pet peeve is Poulsbo being pronounced like it looks instead of Paulsbo, which is how it should be said. Now let’s try Puyallup and Sequim. Of course we do pronounce our Des Moines with the “s” on the end of Moines, I’m ashamed to admit. Okay, now I’m off on a rant about which nobody cares and I apologize.

Squiddy, I’m sorry about your plush Chennux experience, but thanks for sharing – I’m sure you’ll find your frightening, terrible toy someday. And I agree, Scooter is not a good name for a seeing-eye dog. How about Diogenes? I think that’s much better.

Hey, Gadge! Good to see you out and about!
Brown-eyed Girl
August 1st, 2007 at 10:41 pm [Reply]

NOAA celebrates it’s bicentennial with 3-D Mark Trail. Geeky or Retro? Judging from the NOAA types I’ve met here at Sea Grant University I’d say retro, but based on my experience with Beltway bureaucrats I’d say geeky. Maybe it represents an unholy meeting of the minds.
Poteet
August 1st, 2007 at 10:42 pm [Reply]

# 17 — Trotz, I know what you mean. On one hand, I enjoy seeing what True Fable looks like, and the minimalist yet definitive presence of Roopville City Hall in that arcadian landscape is the stuff of art and dreams. On the other hand, I still see Roopville, in my mind, as Camelot, and True Fable as Sir Fable, complete with armor, banners, coat of arms, and noble steed. And like you, I enjoy the mysteries.
AhClem
August 1st, 2007 at 10:43 pm [Reply]

From yesterthread -
Thanks for all the kind thoughts for us up here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Fortunately, nobody in my family nor anybody else I know was involved in the collapse. I don’t live or work near downtown Minneapolis, so my commute shouldn’t be impacted by the loss of a bridge that usually carries 100,000 vehicles per day.

I do, however, happen to work for the MnDOT Bridge Office, so I suspect things at work are going to be crazy for a while. I probably won’t have a lot of time for work-day snarking here, so I expect the rest of you to pick up my (tiny bit of) slack!
treedweller
August 1st, 2007 at 10:47 pm [Reply]

I printed out the glasses, but they made it even harder to see the comic strip.
ralph
August 1st, 2007 at 10:48 pm [Reply]

Seriously, yesterthread, 254, evie oh oh,
whew, I’m very glad to hear you’re OK.
Wishing for the best for all …
Brown-eyed Girl
August 1st, 2007 at 10:50 pm [Reply]

22. fizzy logic. Before I could explain to my east coast friends how to pronounce Oregon, I had to tell most of them where it was (you mean there’s a whole other state between California and Washington!?)
But I should talk — After all these years, I still say Washington when I mean DC and am surprised when people asssume I mean the state.
fizzy logic
August 1st, 2007 at 10:51 pm [Reply]

And yes, despite all my blathering on above, please, all the mudges in the Minneapolis area, I hope you are all safe and with your families.
fizzy logic
August 1st, 2007 at 10:56 pm [Reply]

#28 – Brown-eyed girl – You want confusing? I was an intern in Washington DC while I was attending the University of Washington along with other students from Washington University and George Washington University. Try explaining that… Washington state has no meaning to people there.
Aye of Knute
August 1st, 2007 at 11:02 pm [Reply]

Gail Martin’s manager seems to be the 4/5 scale version of Walter Cronkite.
Lame Name
August 1st, 2007 at 11:03 pm [Reply]

20 – Gadge — Many bwas and has! I loved the logarithm of the beast.
Cedar
August 1st, 2007 at 11:15 pm [Reply]

#1 Is that for reals? Where did you get it from?

This is kinda sad, but earlier today I looked at my calendar at work and thought, “It’s already August! One month until the Great Time Freeze starts. . . “
True Fable
August 1st, 2007 at 11:20 pm [Reply]

I absolutely hate to have my picture taken, so this is a rare event all the way ’round. Thank you for the nice words. You won’t believe how uneasy I have been, waiting for the curses that would follow the multiple crashing of hard drives that must deal with a digitalized Fable. It can’t be a coincidence that this thread immediately follows the one that warns “Be afraid…be very afraid.” :P But in regard to location -

There is a Roopville Georgia. The question to all of you is, where exactly is Greater Metropolitan Roopville? Ah…! Therein lies the rub. Or the rube, as it were. ;-)

Brigadoon, indeed, my friends! Greater Metropolitan Roopville lies in the very heart of people who long for the simple things in life; for summer breezes and porch swings, for tasty berries and juicy steaks on endless tables of the mind, and everlasting snark a-plenty.

But Roopville has pride. I explained to Josh that a nearby town called Whitesburg had its bank totally robbed a few years ago, and I do mean totally. It seems the blunt-force-trauma-sharp minds in charge decided it would cut down on building costs to simply use a single-wide trailer to house the bank, so it was brought in, set up, and everyone was happy. Happy until the night some yahoo backed his truck up to the bank, hooked it up to his trailer hitch, and stole the entire bank. That’s right, they didn’t even bother to remove the wheels from that sucker, they just put it up on heavy duty jacks. It’s all about trailers here in the South, I have come to conclude.

Either way, the unofficial motto in Roopville is, “At least we ain’t Whitesburg.”
Louisgatsaves
August 1st, 2007 at 11:25 pm [Reply]

Roopville’s city hall looks like it was hiit by Slim’s Meteor! Another comic strip crossover in the making?
Cedar
August 1st, 2007 at 11:29 pm [Reply]

True Fable:
Are you Jay from Roopville?

http://www.fborfw.com/fun/blog/archives/002561.php

(if this has been discussed before, I apologize. I rarely have time to get too deep into the comments)
True Fable
August 1st, 2007 at 11:36 pm [Reply]

#36 Cedar: C’est moi!
Poteet
August 1st, 2007 at 11:51 pm [Reply]

Foob letters –

Michael, you dipwad, use your bleepin’ so-called research skills to learn the proper use of commas. I don’t claim perfection in that department, but I am not spending a big wad of cash from my first dreadful novel. You misuse commas again and again to maximum annoying effect, and if I could, I’d put you through a pencil sharpener piece by piece.

Elizabeth, you dimwit, take a summer class on past tenses. “Shedded” means a few things, including really drunk. But it does not refer to cat hair on the clothes of a doofus.
Mibbitmaker
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 am [Reply]

Therzday:

FW: There, Batiuk, now was that so hard?? Actually, nice sequence. I’ll try to remember it when FW goes batshit as Lisa does her “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” bit.

FOOB: Aaaaand the parental abuse/grossly inappropriate squick continues. This’ll make for alot of stuff from y’all the next 24 hours! Alot of stuff.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:06 am [Reply]

I have returned from my house-hunting voyage to the frozen North. My hunt was successful, and I am now a semi-official resident of Greater Metropolitan Waukesha, Wis. Or an official semi-resident, however you want to look at it.

And though I said I wouldn’t read all the snark while I was gone, I did read much of it using the Web browser on my mobile phone, and it got me through many boring hours in the Milwaukee airport.

I did vote for Lio in the newspaper survey as requested. I’m not going to snark tonight, though. Too tired.
Dingo
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:09 am [Reply]

I keep wondering if somehow the creator of Mark Trail receives a stipend from a company every time he uses the phrase “release the birds.” It’s almost become a mantra similar to Paris Hilton’s “That’s hot” or George Bush’s “I’m king of the world!”
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:15 am [Reply]

#41. Or like when Montgomery Burns says, “Release the hounds.”

Or like when George Bush says “Release the hounds.”
Dingo
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:16 am [Reply]

I’m telling you now: having just sat through an outdoor showing of Written on the Wind and seeing Dorothy Malone’s wonderful portrayal of a bad girl who can chew through men and scenery like a boll weevil through a Cheney alibi, Wilbur Weston will be dead before Monday. Dead. Complete. Potted. Pushing up daisies. Deceased. No more. He will never know of Dawn’s secret, illicit love affair with Docto Procto and Dawn will suffer for it. She won’t be able to continue grabbing onto the brass bed and screaming like a white woman while four inches of throbbing, sweaty manstocking thrash inside her like a worm in a Tupperware casserole.
mumbles
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:21 am [Reply]

FOOB: Wow, John is living out my fantasy…wait, that’s a pillowcase full of rocks, right?

MW: Flapper chick makes it sound in the last panel like she’s talking about an embryo….oh, the meddling potential of an unplanned pregnancy!
Poteet
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:21 am [Reply]

# 41 — Dingo, I wonder if the birds have names. Welease Woger! Welease Wodewic! Welease Bwian!
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:21 am [Reply]

Thursday RMMD. Rex looks like he’s doing an impersonation of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West, which is sort of odd given the circumstances. Unless he’s upset that the bomb didn’t kill June. Then it makes sense. And what is that bored looking woman with the coffee cup holding in her left hand? A fish tail? She must be one cool lady, not to react to Hideously Shrieking Rex. Or maybe she’s deaf.
Ron Hogan
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 am [Reply]

FOOB: Nothing says comedy like beating your kids for sassing you! That’s even better than making fun of the way Grampa’s stroke affects his ability to speak!
Mibbitmaker
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:24 am [Reply]

Earlier in this thread, about the Aug. letters… Did Mike St.Foob really use the word “epistle” describing April’s letter to him? Epistle?? Jeez, that foob’s Dippy!
lettuce
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:33 am [Reply]

It’s so square to call your square parents “square,” man. I think the subsequent beating was her father — long since considered slow, dumb but “safe” since his years of Elly/Lynn’s menopausal nightgown flapping left him hungering for trains and nothing more — finally realized what his life — and the lives around him — had become: bad puns, worse plotlines and children bearing only passing resemblence to humanity. Like the Indian in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” he realized there was only one way to save his daughter — smothering her with a pillow.

John has never been too bright though, and confused “smothering” with “braining.” Fortunately the pillow was filled with doorknobs so the end result should be the same.

Tomorrow: Can a Brita Filter break through a Toronto exurb storm window?
lettuce
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:34 am [Reply]

49: realized=realizing. Boxcar@#$!
Lame Name
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:35 am [Reply]

36 Cedar — Bleaugh! I didn’t realize until too late you were linking to coffee talk! I’ve been trying to avoid that. I did scroll down to see True Fable’s comment, and then had the misfortune of accidentally seeing some other comments. What with Judi from Florida declaring “OH MY GOSH I got the chills today when Anthony started dancing with Liz!” and Karen from Olympia squealing, “I’ve been on the edge of my seat wanting to know what “move” he is going to make!”, I was lucky to keep my dinner down. “Move?” You just know that if she had 14 fingers, she’d be finger-quoting while she typed it. “Stop” with the “unnecessary” “quote” marks, “people”!

Rant / off.
Amanda
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 am [Reply]

Nice pictures! I could swear that’s Carmen Sandiego on the neighbourhood watch sign. Does Waldo live there too?
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:41 am [Reply]

Thursday’s Comics, Part 1:

9CL: Is there any way I can comment on this without using the phrase “anal penetration”?

A3G: “Honey, I can see you’re tired and stressed. Do me now. And it had better be good, mule!”

Archie: Is it a lament for the destruction of our cultural patrimony? Is it a plea for better dentistry? And what the hell is up with Archie’s feet and legs in panel 1?

Beetle Bailey: “And shine the bedpans at Walter Reed!”

Bizarro: The pie did it. Get a DNA test.

Cathy: “Yes! Yes! Yes, you bitch! Yes!”

Curtis: Wow, that IS loud. Apparently, it’s realigned Gunk’s eyes in panel 2.

DtM: “And we also decided that he can have my beets, spelling lessons, and rubella shots, in exchange for which I get his dog biscuits, flea medicine, and castration.”

P.S. Poteet: can’t stop laughing; obviously, someone else loves the Python.
And I don’t mean that in a dirty way.
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:45 am [Reply]

45. Poteet — I missed your post the fist time. Now, thanks to Spiny Norman I’m laughing too.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 am [Reply]

FBoFW Now that’s the sort of Foobery I used to know and like. Too bad it’s just a last gasp before the Horror ensues. Yes, Lynn, Fable actually gave the strip a compliment. Don’t let it go to your shiny little head, O Pruney One. I simply mean that it did not mention poo, Mike’s book, Angstony, or any other spew-inducing situation. You’re still a bitch and there is still no Fable in your future.
MT Let the Fisticuffs commence.
MW Early fragile stage? Honey, if your bullet-like head of hair and your boiling kitties shirts haven’t scared him off by now, nothing will.
If he leaves you because he’s bored and there’s fresh meat in the marketplace, well, c’est la vie.
OBH I can’t wait for school to start. The kid needs an outlet.
PBS Big Croc pointing with DOUBLE HANDS! LMAO!
RMMD REX EMOTES! Mr. Passive and/or Smug is actually shocked. You’d think someone found his hidden stash of porn flicks.
TDIET Good. Gawd. Y’all.
9CL Seth’s back. Good times ahead. Hey Divine O’F! It’s safe to read 9CL again, it will be funny for a while.
A3G in other words, “Let’s Fuck.” yeah, as if dating this barracuda wasn’t enough.
JP Did someone just move? It sure wasn’t the plot.
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:48 am [Reply]

Thursday Comics, Part 2:

DT: Obviously, they’ve heard about our Wile E. plan for an Old Snarkers’ Home.

Dilbert: BOOM!

Doonesbury: Mike’s Mom’s been going roadside!

F Minus: I thought the hardest part of the modeling final exam was “Parallel Puking.”

FOOB: “I’m starting to accept it. You know, the way some people accept cancer or a sentence to the gulag.”

(DT) GT: Just too damn easy. Who doesn’t like Gail? “Quick! Get me the 2000 census!”
TheChemist
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 am [Reply]

Dang it, Josh! Now I have to buy a shirt and wear it in front of a “Welcome to Peoria” sign!
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:54 am [Reply]

Thursday Comics #2 Corollary:

(DT) GT: Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling, WV? Just me or Odd-As-Hell choice?
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 am [Reply]

9CL, where the women are hot (jawless, but hot) and the (straight) men are annoying, pathetic, limp-dicked losers. If 9CL were an episode of Survivor, who would you vote off the island?
Amos?
Edda?
Ex-Sister dull?
Ex-Father duller?
Thorax?
DOCTOR Juliette Burber?

If I had my druthers they would all disappear and the strip would be about Seth, Mark, and the cat.
Cap'nCheetah
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:56 am [Reply]

The official homepage of Roopville, GA! http://roopville.ofgeorgia.com Featuring links to the most bizarre pop culture news stories possible! Read all about the world’s largest ketchup packet in Illinois, the girl who won a toy Yoda, and the 93-year-old man who packed heat against a burglar!

I’m from Georgia too, and can say that Roopville is a very nice place, I just found their choices of links quite amusing.
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:01 am [Reply]

BLONDIE – I swear, I always thought I could find humor in any and every thing but I just realized that I do, in fact, draw the line at starving children.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/king.htm?name=Blondie

A3G – If I were Eric I’d hide the cigarettes for fear that Margo would blow that last puff of post-coital smoke right into my face and put the butt out by grinding it into my eye socket.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/king.htm?name=Apartment_3-G

BEETLE BAILEY – Where, oh where to begin…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/king.htm?name=Beetle_Bailey
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:15 am [Reply]

Thursday Comics #3:

Lola: Ha, ha, ha! Old people are stupid!

MT: “You’re right! I had a terrible dream last night about a poorly defined man’s face punctuated by tar-stained shoulders!”
By the way, who’s the air-traffic controller here? The planes in panels 1 and 2 look destined to crash.

Marmaduke: Position. Of dog’s paw. Creeping me out.
Since when does Groping=Bake Cookies?

Monty: Wait…”give me the mouse” didn’t feature at all in the punch line? I feel ripped off!

Phantom: I think “Punt! Uhhhff!” just became my new catch phrase.

Sfx: Morons, malice, melanin, moue, malfeasance, malaise, monotony.

Speed Bump: My foodie 12-year-old son likes. I cannot snark.
Mibbitmaker
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 am [Reply]

8/2:

Archie: Yikes! Arch is in the process of falling down in panel 1. Also, we get to meet the li’l kid version of the Gap-Tooth Starey HOO guy, minus the “HOO!” Maybe that part comes with adolescence.

A3G: I’d love to see Dean Booth do something with Margo in panel 1 — just Magee and her dialogue there. I just love that part.

BBlues: Aw, c’mon! Show, don’t tell!

BBailey: Hey, somebody ruined the doll house.

GF: I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m just glad the politics are over.

MT: P1: The speech balloons are talking to each other. P2: One-panel reruns. P3: Trail: “It’s punching time!” Tune in on Friday!

MW: Huh… maybe I should’ve given Mary more credit. It’s like — WHOA! The Camerons?! Bad example! Bad example! Forget giving Mary more credit (the sneak!).

MC: Our pal Ed Power must’ve studied “chicken fat” with Will Elder! Nice background action there.

Phantom: “PUNT”?

S-M: Worst. Love story. Ever.

TDIET: “Pop person”? (And I thought Thorax’s “Pap” was stupid…)

Zippy: NObody expects visualizing the Spanish Inquisition!
Herro!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 am [Reply]

Brown eyed girl, not one more word. When I met my boyfriend (NorCal), and told him I was from DC, he couldn’t even point out our nation’s capital on a map. He knew it was somewhere east of Nevada. He asked if it was near New York City. (It sort of is, but that’s beside the point!) I just moved to California, and I can’t wait for the barrage of “DC? Where is that? Is that near NYC? That’s hella far!” And I wouldn’t say a word if I weren’t completely clear on exactly where Oregon is. But since you mentioned it, I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing it right. Is it “OR-eh-gun”? “OR-eh-gone?”

And can I just say that I think today’s FOOB is adorable? Sorry, I can’t help it!
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 am [Reply]

Ziggy: Hey, Bill Shatner, here’s a tip: Acting. [Dramatic Pause] Lessons. And you should have kept your damn shirt on in the ’60s. You’re not that sexy.

#63: re. Zippy: MORE Python fans! Hooray! (I’m doing a hedgehoggy happy dance as I type. And that’s not easy.)

Hey, August 2nd! It’s my mom’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom!
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:34 am [Reply]

Zippy – Fetch the comfy chair! You lance boils, Bill. I don’t think you can leech them.
Herro!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 am [Reply]

Elly’s Coffee Blah Blah Blog: Isn’t it interesting how Bob W, who we can assume is from the US or Canada, where English is spoken regularly, has poorer grammar and spelling than Mariagiovanna C, from Sicily, who mentions how the strip helps her with her English?

“Thank You very much! FborFW strips are my daily 5-minutes break of funny learning.
Thanks to the Pattersons, my English improves as much as my mood.
Even though the comments of such a remote supporter can not be that impressive, I realy want to express my congratulations: Lynn You’re great.

Mariagiovanna C, Messina (Sicily), Italy”

“I go further back than most. I had the David Were Pregnant books before my wife and I were parents and our oldest is 27. I remember our delight when the Detroit Free Press started carrying FBOFW and our family like others grew up with the Patersons. I especially like the letters and only wish if the strips are reflections the letters let us know what is happening with the family. Actually I will probably become a grandfather in the next few years and wish I could get the David Were Pregnant trilogy for my kids.

Bob W”

Hey Bob, We’re =/= Were. I would dismiss this as a typo if he didn’t do it TWICE.

Maybe he should read the strips, like Mariagiovanna, instead of just ogling Elizabeth’s lumpy thighs, Elly’s giant ass, and Merrie’s porn-star lips.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 am [Reply]

SecretMargo, thanks for the shout-out. Over the years I learned not only how to pronounce “Oregon” and “Spokane”, but also “Willamette”.

As for Thursday’s comics:

Heathcliff: Are they dissing this week’s Garfield strips? Probably not, but if they are, then I approve.

Cathy, panels 1 through 3: WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY??! Are they peeking through a window that says “Reunion” above it? And if so, where did they suddenly teleport to in the fourth panel? And AGAIN somebody sticks their arm up in the air for emphasis — oh sweet merciful crap, how I hate this strip.

Dick Tracy: Thank you for explaining what “APB” means in the first panel. For you see, I am completely unfamiliar with television and also with all popular culture of the last half-century and I also live in a cave and don’t know how to read.
Lame Name
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:01 am [Reply]

DT — Very little trouble, actually, since he’s about to become a smear on the highway.
Nice to see the CIA labels its headquarters clearly, too. We must not allow a spy agency signage gap!

GA — There’s no way Derle’s “consideration” could cost that much more than the meteorite and S&H. Don’t puss out now, Slim-man!

Angry Duck provides a prime example of why not to split up sentences into separate word balloons. I mean, it’s not as if it’s out of character for Angry Duck to say “…The Reverend Jesse Jackson, is racist!” Frankly, I was just kind of confused about the comma placement.

MT provides a prime example of why word balloons should always be placed on the same side of the panel as the person speaking them. Otherwise the dialogue looks like this:
Buzzard: Who is paying you to release those birds?
Sam: That’s none of your business … now get back to that tree! (To self?:) If you release those birds here you’re going to be in big trouble! Not if no one knows about it!
Which frankly takes the plot in all kinds of delicious directions. So that’s why Sam ran out to “investigate” before Mark could get there. Buzzard tied her up so she couldn’t carry out her fiendish plan.

RMMD: “Somebody wants Heather out of the way!” Maybe so, but Rex, you’re not Dick Tracy. Quit playing detective and say something doctor-y. Like, I don’t know, asking about Hugh’s condition? *Sigh.* You just don’t give a shit any more, do you? Pretty soon, you’ll be like geometric woman over there, staring at her coffee cup while all around her people are talking about bombs. You’ll be like June, having forgotten all basic first aid and most medical terminology. You’ll be Rex Morgan: Mediocre Dumbass. At least you’ll get to keep your initials.
Lame Name
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:24 am [Reply]

65 — Spiny Norman — I don’t know the hedgehoggy happy dance, but I’d be happy to join you in a rousing chorus of “Dimsdale … Dimsdale….” as I do every time John Dimsdale comes on NPR. I always miss the first half of his Marketplace reports because I’m too busy chanting his last name.

66 — Lancing may sound more appropriate for boils, but as you know if you’ve seen BlackAdder, there’s nothing those doctors didn’t try to cure with leeches. A leech on my ear for ear ache, a leech on my bottom for constipation.

Ha! Both great snakes of British comedy in one post.
April Patterdoodle
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:38 am [Reply]

33 Cedar – the stuff in #1 is for real. I just came across it and was going to put up a link to it but Major Hooples beat me to it. (Now there is a phrase I never thought I’d see myself typing!)

Anyway, here is the link if you want it : http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/newsrelease/?view=644

My first impression of Foob today was surprisingly good, reminds me of old times. Nice Artwork, not overly sacharine. Also, has anyone ever seen so much action out of John!

Now for my second impression – it suddenly came to me that John shares a lot of similarities with Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty. He usually seems so cold and almost sleepwalking through life….

Ewwwwwwww.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:45 am [Reply]

It was rude of me not to reply:

#7 katherine – hey neighbor!
#10 willethompson – I wear my shirts with pride!
#14 Squid Countess – Crazy Welsh miners? One out of three is definite, but I only think I might have a little Welsh and a little miner in my blood. I know I’m crazy.
#15 Brown-Eyed Girl – Lynn Johnston couldn’t handle the awesome power of Fable on a roll, doll.
#16 SecretMargo – AHAHAHA! Um, thanks! You have no idea how much that tickles me.
&19 It does look like a movie set, doesn’t it? I knew I should have taken a side view of it, but all the goats in town were already getting stirred up by all the excitement so we had to run.
#22 fizzylogic – You found me out!
#24 Poteet – Camelot will always be yours, my queen.
:-)
AppleGirl
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:04 am [Reply]

Hello, True Fable! It’s been really fun this summer, seeing everyone on CC in real life. I’d send in a photo of myself, but I can’t decide which shoes to wear!
AppleGirl
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 am [Reply]

Welcome back, fizzy logic and Jamus the Bartender!
dale
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:18 am [Reply]

20 – GadgeCubic: Wouldn’t that be better as lnbeast? Or is there a point too subtle for me to see without the Colored Glasses of Horror?
Speaking of which and ignoring the issue of the ear pieces, does it matter which color goes with which eye?
NOAA may be doing a lot of interesting work beyond weather prediction type stuff. But every time I see promotional material like that I end up asking is that really the proper function of a national government.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 am [Reply]

#73 Apple Girl – I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I have some black cowboy boots, a casual pair of Earth Shoes and a more formal pair of Earth Shoes, and a scuddy old beat-up pair of sneakers. I’m not exactly a podiatle expert. I’m not even certain podiatle is a word, but I’ll brandish it proudly about regardless.
Dub Not Dubya
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:59 am [Reply]

45 Poteet: My cat who died last year was named Reese, and I would sometimes say, “Wewease Weese!” to him. I don’t think he got it, though. (And BTW, belated sympathies on your recent loss of your kitty as well.)

MW: “Give Wilbur more credit, Dawn. I mean, the guy writes an advice column while pretending to be a woman. Who is he to judge?”
Bronw-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:10 am [Reply]

Herro!: Or-e-gun. And Willamette rhymes with dammit, although if you are in southern Cal. no one will care about the latter, probably. In the northwest, though, better get it right or people will sneer at you, in a west coast laid back sort of way.
Bronw-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:17 am [Reply]

73. AppleGirl . Mules, of course
daryljfontaine
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:15 am [Reply]

FOOB: Doorknobs? Rocks? John’s tired of Elly getting all the credit for helpful hints around the house, so he’s showing the reader the practical application with April: oranges leave no bruises.
Ed Power, writer of My Cage
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:28 am [Reply]

Mibbitmaker @ 63,

Thanks, but the background gag was all Melissa. She’s the best!

-Ed
smacky
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:04 am [Reply]

I didn’t know True Fable was the offspring of Roy Orbison!
John C Fremont
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:07 am [Reply]

Josh, we may not get Mark Trail’s Fist O’ Justice in 3-D (Thank you, NOAA!) but if there truly is justice in this world, at least we’ll be seeing the FO’J tomorrow or Saturday in good old American 2-D. Hurray for the red, white and blue!

Oh, and at least April Patterson didn’t call her father “Daddy-o!” Squaresville, man.
willethompson
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:08 am [Reply]

MT: The MT balloon placement is surreal today. And I mean Rod Serling on the brown acid while trapped in a Munsch woodcut reciting The Bald Soprano eating a peyote burrito surreal. Dialog is flung from flight decks, beverage carts and Sam’s navel piercing. Normally, I’d give Mark’s ‘worst nightmare’ line a pass, but evidently that spot on his collar has something to say and it won’t be denied!
Krauthead
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:11 am [Reply]

FOOB:
Assthony needs to die. You suck Lynn. Eat my balls!
dreadedcandiru2
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:31 am [Reply]

FOOB: Apparently, Lynn thinks ten thousand repetitions equal one fact. Shame on her.

FW: Nothing snark-worthy. (Finally!!)

C’Shaft: It’s like we’re watching the anti-matter Patterson family: Jeff is killing himself ofering help to a woman who refuses it.

DtM: I just realized that there are another set of parents who’d think April Patterson was a dangerous rebel. They live in Wichita, KS and their names are Henry and Alice Mitchell. After all, they think their idiot son has ASBO when anyone without a broomstick wedged up their jacksie sees is a grinning dunce.

GA: How much does a good night’s sleep cost, anyway? Is it worth half a year’s profits? A man’s dignity? His decency? His sanity? His freedom? Slim is about to show us just how much he’s willing to pay.
Blake
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 am [Reply]

FW: Any one who has seen my comments recently knows that I hate Funky Winkerbean and that awful hack Batiuk… however, today I have a compliment for him. Thank you Batiuk for not subjecting us to your painful dialogue.

FOOB: Uncontrolled rage that leads to hitting your daughter so hard that your glasses fall off is funny. Lynn, you really are a hateful old hag, aren’t you?

Mark Trail: I laughed out loud today. “I’m your worst nightmare!” That is awesome. Unintentionally funny, sure, but still awesome. Not to mention, the suspense is killing me! Will we get to see some punchin’ tomorrow? It has got to be soon…
smacky
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 am [Reply]

FW: Anyone else reminded of the end of Return of the Jedi with today’s strip? Banana-Nose finds his mother and she collapses on the porch in front of him. Five seconds together, and she’s dead. Then he drags her to the car seconds before Lando blows up the house. That night, his girlfriend reveals herself to be his sister and Banana-Nose burns his mom’s body in a bonfire in the backyard, as ewoks dance around. Before the flames die, the police drag him away, as the crystal meth surges through his bloodstream.

Just me???
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 am [Reply]

snarkito ergo sum…..

MT: Come on, people, it’s a “complete the sentence” contest! “I’m your worst nightmare: __________”. My entry: “a handsome outdoorsman and photojournalist for Woods and Wildlife magazine who spends his days hunting, fishing and pursuing simple pleasures. But all too often my woodland paradise is threatened, and that’s when I spring into action! When not plying my trade, I’m preserving the nation’s dwindling wetlands, fighting the crass commercialism that is creeping into even the most remote forests, protecting wildlife from poachers, and keeping America’s greatest natural treasures free from the thugs, gangsters and goons who sometimes invade it!”

Too wordy? Well, let’s hear yours, Mr. Pithy.

TDIET: Grimley is my new all time favorite comics character, pop person.

PBS: Starey wooHOOO alligator! Is he gap-toothed?
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:02 am [Reply]

BB: It’s a pig’s life in the modern army!
Mack
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 am [Reply]

What is Spider-Man – seven? “Ha ha ha, Jonah loves a giiiir-iiiiirl!” Then Spidey pantses him and knocks his ice cream into the dirt.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:05 am [Reply]

90 ID: I object, in the strongest possible terms, to this obvious reference to the slogan ‘It’s a dog’s life … a man’s life in the modern army’ and I warn this blog that any recurrence of this sloppy long-haired civilian plagiarism will be dealt with most severely.
Tacy
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 am [Reply]

#83 – I think the balloons in the first panel are coming from each other.
Whippersnapper
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 am [Reply]

FW: Wow, the Nose has made it to Lisa’s and told her already. Considering the fact that it took him several days to open the letter, I thought it would take at least a couple days for him to drive there, punning and smirking all the way.

Re yesterthread’s minor discussion of Fred Bassett: I too am a Fred fan. I don’t find the cartoon hilarious, but I think Fred’s really cute, and that makes me smile.
Galactic Emperor Chennux®™©
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:24 am [Reply]

ATTENTION EARTHERS! TAKE YOUR LUNESTRA AND ASSUME THE FETAL POSITION! CHENNUX SPEAKS!

TO THE ONE CALLED STINKY PETE! CHENNUX IS THIS GALAXY’S WORST NIGHTMARE! HAHA!

TO THE ONES CALLED POTEET AND SQUID COUNTESS! PLUSH CHENNUX? PLUSH?? WE HAVE DISCUSSED THIS BEFORE, EARTHER FEMALES, AND CHENNUX DOESN’T DO PLUSH! CHENNUX IS HARD AND SCALY AND DEPLOYS A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SKXCRITORT WITH AWESOME MAJESTY! OK, HE HAS THIS ‘PLUSH SPOT’ FOR THE ONE CALLED APPLEGIRL BUT, REALLY, IS SHOE FETISHISM A BAD THING?

THE ONE CALLED JAMUS! SET UP ONE MORE ROUND! IT’S A FOUR-DAY WEEKEND HERE IN THE WESTERN SPIRAL ARM WHERE WE CELEBRATE ‘THE TRAMPLING OF THE MEEK’ ON COOZAX SIX WITH AN ‘EMPEROR’S CHOICE’ GOLF TOURNAMENT! GUESS WHO’S GOING TO WIN? HAHA!

CHENNUX WITH A MAGMACANNON-FORGED 13,582 CC DRIVER WITH A STIFF SHAFT AND A WICKED SLICE! NOW, THERE’S A WORST NIGHTMARE! HAHA!

END TRANSMISSION!
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 am [Reply]

Good Lord, even the characters in Spider-Man are getting kind of bored by all of this television watching. Except, of course, for Spidey himself, who was apparently bitten by a lazy, shiftless spider who yelled at his TV a lot.
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:36 am [Reply]

Either that or Spidey was bitten by a radioactive Plugger.
Scherzo
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:47 am [Reply]

OMG, True Fable and Katherine! I’m in Athens, GA, too! I’m the one driving around in the white minivan blastin’ Love Shack!

(Actually, I used to get bugged with the B-532s manager — he would be hogging the screen-printing studio when I would have a project due. This was in Art School a very, very, verry long time ago.)

ahem.

FW today. Allow me to chime in with my thanks to Batiuk for sparing us some possibly painful dialog.

But he has been missing some comic opportunities —
J: Does this mean Mr. Moore is your father?!
D:
J: No. Strike that. Look at you. No way.
D: Whew!

J: Gosh! How old was she when she had you? Like 10?
D: Well, I’m 17…
J: Wow. Like, how long have they been together?
D: I dunno. They have this kid… Oh my gosh, Jess, I have a sister…
J: Focus dimwit! I’m trying to make a point here. Mr. Moore probably doesn’t know her secret.
D: Whaddaya mean?
J: She had you long before they got married. I bet he doesn’t know she had a kid before.
D: You’re right! Wow!
J: You gotta be careful about this. You don’t want to blow her secret.
D: Yeah, we got to get her alone without Mr. Moore..

Later, a hilarious farce ensues as Darrin tries to speak privately with Lisa. Despite Jessica running interference, Les keeps popping up at inoppotune moments, or Summer makes odd comments that don’t make sense except in like of the fact she is a precocious mind-reader.

Somebody help me make this funny. I’ve got to go to work.
smacky
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:48 am [Reply]

#89: stinky pete, When I first read the line, my mind completed Mark’s sentence like this:

“I’m your worst nightmare, bitch!”

Spoken in the same inflection as Sigourney Weaver in Aliens: “Get away from her, you bitch!”
slinkimalinki
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 am [Reply]

mt — someone shoulda told sam hill that high-waisted jeans make you look bloated.
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:59 am [Reply]

There is a fine Lockhorns parody in today’s Tom the Dancing Bug:

http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2007/08/02/boll/
Chat Noir
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:14 am [Reply]

MW – Every day, the image on Dawn’s shirt gains a new detail. First day, it looks mainly like a lump of cheddar. Second day, it becomes identical kittens in a pot. Now, on the third day of Dawn’s adventure in guilt, the kittens have distinct expressions (one clearly angry) and are sitting in a flower-adorned basket. I expect for them to burst out of the comics page tomorrow, fully formed and ready for vengeance.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:14 am [Reply]

In honor of my return (which went entirely unheralded in this blog, I might note), it’s “Let’s Fuck!” Day on the funny pages!

9CL: I can tell you what to say to Diane… “Let’s fuck!”

A3G: Margo: “So who needs to talk?! …Let’s fuck!”

BB: “A clean barracks is a happy barracks! So grab those mops and brooms and let’s fuck!” …Errr, okay, maybe I won’t try that with every strip today.

C’Shaft: Why, again, did he think that setting the senile old bat up for online banking was such a great idea? Oh, yeah, to facilitate the embezzling.

Curtis: Has anything involving that Flyspeck-for-a-brain Gunk ever not been a disaster? Curtis, seriously, dude, you need to go to a therapist and figure out why you keep forming such destructive friendships. My guess is it involved a traumatic experience involving the words “Let’s fuck.” (See? In comedy, that’s called a callback!)

DT: Oho! The Baron has recovered something from the barn and is about to flag down another taxi from Plot Convenience Cab Company. Wonder what it is he’s carrying? It’s not quite rectangular, more trapezoidal, and seems to have a dark base. A canister of anthrax? The severed head of Jimmy Hoffa in a jar? The Pu-37 Explosive Space Modulator? Sauron’s Lava Lamp of Power? A jar of very, very, very well-aged kimchee? Now that’s a weapon of ass destruction.

Edge City: I’m reminded of Futurama… “Weeeeee resemble but are legally distinct from The Lollipop Guild!”

FBOFW: She needs to be reminded it’s the new home? Does John think April will say, “No, Dad! We live three doors down! Are you going Shan…non on me?”

GT: Good move, private dick! Start narrowing down the suspects to people who don’t like her. It’s a good thing Banjo here had his instrument accidentally welded to his torso during that unfortunate double-bill appearance with Great White, or Detective Wolverrings wouldn’t know he’s a member of the band and might put his fist down his gullet.

H&J: Is Herb shopping in Lilliput, or is he 11 feet tall?

H&L: Yeah, except for, I dunno, your entire freaking’ Y chromosome. No more CSI for you, dipshit. Gil Grissom you ain’t.

MW: Run, Drew! Run! If you get involved with a woman with a kitten T-shirt, you’ve got a long, looong life of flea markets and antiquing ahead of you. Take my word for it.

Monty: I would love to play “The Cats of Nabär.”

Phantom: “Everybody was oar-fu fighting, huh! Those guys were fast at whitening!” White men in white uniforms on a white boat. If our pasty-skinned, white-haired villain wasn’t wearing an orange shirt, he’d blend completely into the background like a chameleon and be safe. Bet he’s regretting this morning’s prison-jumpsuit-inspired sartorial choices now!

Marmaduke: “Ret’s ruck!”
Rebochan
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:22 am [Reply]

MT: Best. Mark Trail. EVER.
nobody
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:22 am [Reply]

More maudlin crap from the funkyverse.

I thought Lisa was dead.
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 am [Reply]

Death is coming for Lisa, nobody, never fear!

And when Death does finally arrive for Lisa (after two weeks of strips of Death driving in his car and checking the address), who will rear back his head to the hospital ceiling and scream the great Vader NOOOOOOOOO! in the last panel? Will it be Darrin the Nose? Les? Summer? That comic book guy? Mr. Montoni? Harry Dinkle? Ed Crankshaft?

I can’t wait to find out.
mattt
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 am [Reply]

(DT)GT “You’re the private eye, right?” Ha! I called it! Yay me!

(sigh)

That’ll probably be the high point of my day. Is that sad?

Speaking of Gil Thorp I reviewed Gil Thorpe on my blog, but want to include a sample strip to illustrate my point. There was an awesome one a couple of months back where every panel seemed to represent a different plot line, but I can’t find it.

Can someone point me to a quintessential GT panel? Thanks!
Wellsey
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 am [Reply]

So, I’m the only one who thinks True Fable bears more than a passing resemblance to Roy Orbison? Also, I loved the Whitesburg story. That is sheer wonderfulness!

Almost as wonderful as the hilarity in today’s Mark Trail, panel three. “I KNOW ABOUT IT!” “Who are you?” “i’m your worst nightmare!” I know what you’re thinking, will he punch me six times or only five? Seeing as how this is a five fingered Fist O’ Justice, the most powerful hand in the world, and could punch your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?
Dr. Mad
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:30 am [Reply]

True Fable – as seen in this photo, you resembled not only your own self but both Roy Blount -the literary angle – and Roy Orbison [not now - in earlier times] – the angle that LJ is hot for [maybe it's just a Southron- GOB*- thing]. Squid Countess – crazy Welsh miners? -my Daddy’s people were Welsh – [the huge clan of Rossers] -but weren’t miners. A well known diagnostic for Welsh blood – besides a tendency to burst into song – is an ability to create memorable stories by reworking and embroidering plain accounts and the development over time of a pronounced ball-shape on the end of the nose. Robert Benchley -who displayed all those traits to an advanced degree – affirmed his Welsh ancestry in prose, so we have excellent company. I’m sorry I don’t have any pics modelling merch, I do have one in full National Parks uniform from a brief stint as an Interpretive Ranger, but I’m not punching anyone, more’s the pity. *good ol’ boy -meaning no disrespect.
Gulielma
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 am [Reply]

Having read the FOOB letters for my sins, I have to admit I love April a little for sending Michael a letter all about how to neuter an animal. Odd that April’s letter says she’s headed to the farm, and Michael’s assumes she’s already there. And Michael putting a casserole in the oven for his family? (per his letter) Michael buying expensive clothes because they last longer? (per Deanna’s letter). Bull and crap, based on the evidence of the strips.

I also call shenanigans on Mason the best man’s “medical condition” in Liz’s letter. Mason’s not a rummy, he just didn’t know how hard the wine would hit him!

As for today’s strip, let me make another “The Grifters” reference:

John: Tell me about the oranges, April.

RMMD: Hugh is “badly injured?” He’s deafened by the explosion, and his shirt’s unbuttoned and his tie is crooked! Guess that’s majorly disheveled for a Brit.

FW: Ah, how heartwarming. Or not.

Sally Forth: Hilary has the right idea. Pistachio ice cream for everyone!

Zits: More from the “crap, I have no ideas this week” file.
teenchy
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 am [Reply]

Scherzo, Katherine and True Fable: I too have lived in Athens, GA (motto: “The Athens of Georgia”), having spent my formative years there as a student. I must either have drunk too much or too little from the waters of the Oconee, however, as my powers of snark are weak and limited mostly to dumbfounded restatements of the obvious. Of course, it could be because I spent too much time on South Campus…

I was an odd bird at the time as I was an out-of-state student; I went to UGa for a number of reasons, among which was that too many of my relatives were going/had gone to Clemson and I didn’t want someone reporting on me back to the family.
Inspector Dim
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 am [Reply]

I’m a descendant of Welsh miners (less crazy than dour, I’m afraid) –but the only thing I know for sure that defines a person as Welsh is a tendency to enjoy the movie “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain.” No other ethnic group thinks that this is a good movie, I’m afraid.
Perky Bird
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:39 am [Reply]

Any of you DC Mudgeons want to get together today and ride the Metro up to Silver Spring to get our very own Mark Trail 3-D cards? I know where the NOAA building is.
Elly\'s Evil Twin
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:43 am [Reply]

Hello, all. Semi-long time reader, first time snarker.

First, thanks to Josh and his wonderful crew, I now read way more comics than a girl should on a daily basis…I now totally enjoy even the crappiest, oddest, batshit insane strips. And of course by that, I mean Gil Thorp.

To True Fable and the other residents of this fine state, I’m also a Georgia girl! Nice to see us represented so well here!

So, here are my attempts to join the Junior Snarking League. Be kind, y’all.

Big Dog: I too thought that his big paw was inappropriately placed, and that “bake cookies” was dog-speak for “getting’ jiggy wit it.” And may I say that out of all the comics wives, this one has the LEAST amount of fashion sense!

FW: If more of the strips were like this one, y’all would have a lot less to snark at. Is that a good thing or bad thing? *grin*

H&L: The kids have been watching too much Court TV. What next? “If the DNA’s the same, you can’t place the blame?”

MT: Great. Now the word balloons are talking to each other. Are they sentient beings that have been floating amongst humans for eons, forcing them to do and say things that are entirely bizarre? That would explain a lot of things about this strip actually.

DtM: Why does Ruff always have something green in his fur? I need to stop reading this one in color, because it really disturbs me to see algae on a dog’s snout.

MW: I was wrong about Mrs. Marmaduke. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a purple outfit with kittens on it.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:49 am [Reply]

Skullturf Q. Beavispants: I address you, sir… no, the other Skullturf Q. Beavispants… yes, you (and any other mathe-mudges in earshot)…

Yesterday’s Technology column in the Wall Street Journal reported from a workshop sponsored by the American Institute of Mathematics, the topic of which was the Tate Conjecture. While the main goal of the column was to try to explain what mathemeticians do (and in broad terms try to explain the Tate Conjecture), it also took pains to portray mathematicians as jes’ folks like the rest of us.

There were two math jokes in the column that the writer picked up at the workshop, one of which is self explanatory: “How can you spot the extroverted mathematician? He’s the one staring at the other person’s shoes.”

The other is OK in its own right: “What should you do if you meet a tiger in the forest? Nothing; the tiger will do everything himself.”

However, the writer specifically attributes this joke to some number theorists. Hence my question: is there a result in number theory that would make this joke funnier to a number theorist than to us jes’ folks?
Harley Quinn
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:51 am [Reply]

*comes out of lurking mode*

I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who actually liked today’s FOOB. Normally it drives me bonkers, but today’s was actually good. Could be that it’s because it reminds me of the relationship I have with my Dad of good natured teasing.
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:52 am [Reply]

Great Photos True – and you look quite as I pictured you! My imaginary technology is becoming clearer, I think, like a dead-on Mark Trail punch.

#1 – Holy (Tim Horton) donut, now Lynnster is comparing herself to Sam Clemens? Gimme a break. That’s almost as pretentious as Mike’s first printed batch of treacle.

Speaking of treacle, I guess Ruff really is a filthy dog after all. The wastewater from his bath will have to be contained and placed in a special sealed Hazmat drum.

And speaking of weird animals, today it looks like Dawn’s kittens are not in a stewpot, but in some sort of machine with cogs and wheels a la Rube Goldberg. Maybe it’s a commemorative T-shirt from Engineering Design Wars from her high school years.

And MargoBoxcar, Batuik, you made me weep this morning. Damn you. I thought only suffering and needy animals and PMS made me do that-now I’ll have to add you my list.
ChristianPinko
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:52 am [Reply]

Peter Parker’s Ted Forth-esque gesture in panel 2 of Spider-Man — I just — there are no words.
smacky
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:56 am [Reply]

#103: The Spectacular Spider-Brick, the Baron is carrying a 45-year-old canned ham. Be afraid!

#108: Wellsey, you are not alone (re: Roy Orbison). See # 82!
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:57 am [Reply]

#116 – I agree. It took me a minute to get the joke as I was thinking the two squares were the pillows -but stoopid me, pillows aren’t square!

Hagar ain’t bad either – it’s actually an interesting double entendre about trust and backstabbing.

And Mark – Ooooooh – cue Alice Cooper!
I eagerly await a fist with my MBS – ensconsed coffee tomorrow. And a 3-D NOAA card.
Dennis Jimenez
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:02 am [Reply]

S4th – I’m going out on a limb here – Ted the Tweeker.
Gabe
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:04 am [Reply]

107 Matt: Check out Dean Booth’s Gil Thorp calender on his site. All the best GT panels in one easy calendar form!

(click on his name)
Artist formerly known as Ben
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:10 am [Reply]

8/2

MT: Here’s a quick poll. Would Mark sound more threatening if he said “I’m your worst nightmare” in an Al Gore voice? Or a Carl Sagan voice.

RMMD: Somebody wants Heather out of the way. That’s why they blew up Hugh’s car. How amazing that Rex got a medical degree with less than half a brain.

GA: Man, who knew being a white supremacist was so expensive.

S-M: Peter is willingly watching JJ’s show, which is much duller than the Ceaucescu speeches that used to blanket Romanian TV. Man has no idea how to spend time out of his costume. (Or in it, but that’s another story.)

SFx: “Madness” starts with an M, doesn’t it?

Baldo: Baldo, it’s not a great idea to remind your boss what a neckless moron he is.

Lockhorns: Leroy may have the wrong idea about what “Wife Swap” is. We know you miss those key parties, but this isn’t quite the same thing.

Big Dog: Judging from the placement of his paws, Marm is interested in one particular cookie.

9CL: Is there any clean interpretation of the third panel? Methinks not.

GT: That’s Gail Martin’s bassist. You can tell, because he carries his bass around everywhere he goes. You’ll know her drummer when you see him, ’cause he’ll never be able to put down his sticks. It’s in the musician’s contract. This is gonna be an awesome summer.
Artist formerly known as Ben
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 am [Reply]

#109, Dr. Mad,
I’m half Welsh, but tend not to break into song. My friends took out a court order, you see.
Piper Grey
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 am [Reply]

JP: Here’s what goes on behind the scenes:

Sophie’s Blog

Entry 109 801

Received an urgent e-mail from Abbey. She wants me to put up a couple of quick websites showing the definition of ‘normal Parisian service’ to be a way of serving food. In particular, she doesn’t want me to mention baths full of champagne, silk underwear, twosomes, whips, and ‘ticklers’. She said that it doesn’t matter whether I mention ’sex’ because Sam never thinks about it.

Entry 109 800

Sam still can’t reach Abbey, but then, he never could. I’m still feeding him ‘facts’ about water and stuff, which is really very fitting. Found out that there was some French taxman whose brain was nearly all water. If someone did a scan of Sam’s brain, they would find it was 100% liquid.

Speaking of liquids, Keith’s little tour of the place was very helpful in one way: I now know where they keep all the wine. A quick Goggle about red wine shows that a glass a day is good for the health, so I should be four times as healthy and it isn’t even time for lunch yet.

Entry 109 799

Sam asked me to Google ‘normal Parisian service’. After finding out more than Sam wants to know, I quickly diverted the topic to hydrology. Hey, there’s limits to what you can do when you’re in a vineyard with a man for whom ‘checking out the accounts’ really means checking out the accounts.

Entry 109 798

When Sam tried to ring Abbey today on her cell phone, some man answered instead. He said he was a butler and that this was just ‘normal Parisian service’. He also answered Neddie’s phone.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am [Reply]

Look out, here it comes: Pasty White Folks 2: The Lurch To Armageddon!
SatanicMechanic
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am [Reply]

9cl: Pinnstripes…? double breasted coat? or jacket or whatever he said? Holy Molly Wooly Booly…. What time period is this set in exactly? Where can you even buy stuff like that (J. Peterman?)??

Foob: Somehow when Bucky calls Rob a square its funny… now why is that? I don’t think Lynn needs to retire, she just needs to go back to cartoonist’s school (or whatever) and get re-oriented. After all, they make doctors and nurses re-take tests so that they still do their jobs years after graduating. Sure, doctors and nurses have the potential of killing you if they aren’t up to date, but even if Lynn can’t kill us with her strip… well, it’s probably going to happen the other way around.
Original Lee
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am [Reply]

True Fable – That neighboring town story was a nice Dortmunder shoutout. I love it when life imitates art, especially Donald E. Westlake art.

Lio – I just looooove that the dad looks like the Grinch.

A3G – Ah, Margo, I’m so glad Eric changes moods as fast as you do – you may have met your true soulmate at last. Especially if he is able to stop brooding about his maybe-dead brother in China long enough for some Afternoon Delight with you. (Is it afternoon, BTW? That party seemed to be going on for a long time.)
Old Bean
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:32 am [Reply]

MT: Only one more sleep till Fists o’ Justice! I’m giddy. We already know Mark can punch off facial hair, but can he punch it on? Of course he can. By the time Mark’s done with him, this clean-shaven rogue’s going to have a beard down to his navel and a rare collection of ZZ Top b-sides.

Fable: Looks like you’ve studied the Buster Keaton Rule of Standing Near Flimsy Walls – position yourself so the wall can collapse comically around you, while the window keeps you safe. Nice work.
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:32 am [Reply]

I see the GT claw-thing™ has mudged its way over into Rex Morgan’s office, where it will steadily munch on incoming patients.

Here’s a couple images from the NOAA site as well:

http://www.accessnoaa.noaa.gov/index041904.html

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/lightning/flashriprock.htm

Now I am obsessed with having one of those damn do-I need-new-glasses cards for my collection.
Bill James
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 am [Reply]

True Fable:

Thanks for the snaps. I went to college in Carrollton (back in the 70s when it was still West Georgia College). I’ve hitchjiked through Roopville a time or two.

Neighborhood watch, oh yeah!
nobody
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:36 am [Reply]

In today’s fooberverse, dad knocks down april to see if she has been washing all her clothes.
B
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:44 am [Reply]

Slate.com has an article on the original Popeye. Apparently it was always as insane as it is now: http://www.slate.com/id/2171216/slideshow/2171506/fs/0//entry/2171505/
Popeye’s first appearance:
“Initially, Castor and Ham recruit Popeye for a journey to Dice Island, where they intend to use the magical properties of Bernice the Whiffle Hen to break the bank of an offshore casino”
Gulielma
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 am [Reply]

127–It’s funny when Bucky calls Rob a square because Bucky’s generally clueless and stuck in Cold War type rhetoric. Dude, calling a square a square is square, man.
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am [Reply]

#132 – Elly will join them in a sheet-shaving frenzy, and all will be well until Mewedith falls into the river behind Mike’s tack-filled castle and the rabbit dies trying to pull her out (the dogs don’t care; all they do is sleep, eat/glup/munch/slurp/chew, bark, and pass old-dog gas).
The weekend family barbecue will then take a neat twist, French-style.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 am [Reply]

I went a little silly last night and tackled Funky Cancerbean too. Didn’t realize until just now that Lisa in the last panel looks disturbingly like Popeye. Well, I deliberately put Sally Forth in there so the more the merrier I guess.

I yam what I yam.

#131 Bill James – Hey former Brave, you know they changed the nickname, right? They are no longer the West Georgia Braves, although I never had a problem with it. Someone apparently did. (I’d rather be represented by a Brave than, say, Meth Lab dealer.) Now they are the West Georgia Wolves.

I want to hear howls of protest from the Lupine community. *nooooo!* Oh God, I’ve been working on Foob and Funky too [margo]ing long, I’m thinking in Pun. Take me now, Lawd, take me now.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 am [Reply]

#89 Stinky Pete – MT “I’m your worst nightmare… perpetually 32 since I never change expression, so wrinkled and lines never appear on my face!”

“I’m your worst nightmare… a frustrated man alone with Miss Hills but married to Ms. Scarey Stare.”

“I’m your worst nightmare…. those ducks through the windshield were friends of mine.”
Major Hoople’s Boarding House
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:00 am [Reply]

True Fable – The Pasty White Focks #2 strip is good, but Funky Cancerbean with it’s smirk-out to Sally Forth is even better.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:08 am [Reply]

#115 Stinky Pete — unless I’m missing something subtle, I don’t see any covert number theory references in the tiger joke. (Nice joke, by the way — I don’t remember hearing it before.) Certainly, I don’t think “tiger” has any specialized meaning in number theory, or anything like that.

I suppose, though, in a vague sense, there is something a little “mathematician-like” about the tiger joke. Generally speaking, mathematicians find it elegant if an argument begins with very few assumptions, but manages to obtain surprisingly specific conclusions. If it’s been established that you’re face to face with a tiger, you don’t have to do a lot of figuring to determine what happens next.
Major Hoople’s Boarding House
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:13 am [Reply]

9CL — What?

“The sinuous, smoking strains of a Bandoneon”

Tango music is not romantic? Shame on you. The tango scene in Adams Family Values is one of the exotic bits around (along with being funny).

And of course, you need the outfit to go along with the dance of love…
Bootsy
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:20 am [Reply]

Sqiddy, (may I call you Squiddy?) I loved your plush emperor story! I wish I could help. I used to have a great hard plastic alligator about 3 feet long (it was a part of a Mardi Gras costume) and I realized that if I left it on the couch my dog would stay off the couch. So it stayed on the couch year round.

That gator was spiny and had pointy teeth and NO smile and scared dogs, so I think with a crown and magmacannon it would do the Emporer proud.

I haven’t seen him since he swam out the house a couple years ago.

True Fable, I (heart) you, and now I know what you look like! Hmm, and where you live. Don’t worry, I know your heart belongs to Queen Poteet.
Artist formerly known as Ben
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 am [Reply]

TF, have I mentioned that I love the Roopville City Hall? It’s got a definite chill factor.
Big Sims
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 am [Reply]

True Fable sends off more of a Tom Waits vibe to me. Totally inexplicable, but there it is. Meds and coffee kicking in I expect. Very cool pictures True Fable, very cool.
Ahl
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am [Reply]

Dis my city of Peoria, eh? Well Josh, prepare for a vicious “punch to the hypothalamus” or perhaps a beat down with a “pillowcase full of doorknobs.” Or perhaps I will release birds near your local airport, making air travel both unsafe and worthy of the wrath of a rugged but asexual activist.

For your information, Peoria just may BE Shangri-La!

All these threats will go away if a certain long-promised but not delivered metapost shows up.

UNRELATED ADDENDUM: Are Becky’s unwashed outfits affecting her ability to be “gig”, “hands on”, and “roadside”? One would think so.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:33 am [Reply]

Smacky and Wellsey: you ought to hear me sing Roy Orbison at karoke! I don’t do it much anymore, since getting me to a karoke bar usually involves getting me drunk enough to leap octaves and not sentient enough to care that people are watching. Since I shouldn’t drink, I have to be hit in the pride and double-dared.

#141 Bootsy – Yes, my heart belongs to my beloved Queen Poteet, but the rest of my organs (except for the liver) are available for borrowing! >;-) You come on out Roopville way, sweet pea, and I will give you the complete three-minute tour of Roopville, and a trip to Greater Metropolitan Roopville for dinner!

#142 Artist Formerly Known as Ben – Oh it does, Roopville City Hall is just ate up with atmosphere! I joke but it really is pretty around here. Plenty of scenery since we don’t build very large.

Roopville has a little gazebo/stage in the center of town where the town Roopville Days celebration is held and those of us with no fear and even less sense get up and sing. Roopville even has its own museum in the old city hall (you can just imagine what IT must look like!) Plus, there’s the Roundelay at the edge of town that has a dead end sign on one road from the Roundelay, and some folks have been known to just keep driving around and around. They don’t call this the simple life fer nuthin’, folks.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:35 am [Reply]

Thank you much, Big Sims, I’ve long said I have the Heart of Saturday Night in my soul.
ThisWas
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:38 am [Reply]

#34 True Fable wrote: “But Roopville has pride. I explained to Josh that a nearby town called Whitesburg had its bank totally robbed a few years ago, and I do mean totally. It seems the blunt-force-trauma-sharp minds in charge decided it would cut down on building costs to simply use a single-wide trailer to house the bank, so it was brought in, set up, and everyone was happy. Happy until the night some yahoo backed his truck up to the bank, hooked it up to his trailer hitch, and stole the entire bank.”

Hmmm… sounds exactly like the plot of “Bank Shot” by Donald Westlake (1972). I wonder if the yahoo was a Dortmunder fan?
Gadge Cubic, Mole Preener
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 am [Reply]

#75 dale: It probably would have been…but, you know, even more obscure. Not that it matters, for an entirely hypothetical t-shirt. Also it prevented me from having to choose notation, since it appears (in my very brief, non-professional survey – a/k/a looking shit up on Wikipedia) that different disciplines prefer different notation to designate the natural log.

What I don’t know is how they designate the unnatural log. Ha. Me so funny.
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:40 am [Reply]

I saw over on Gawker that they’re runnning their own contest to see who can make the most intentionally awful New Yorker cartoon. The earlier entries haven’t been all that funny, but the latest one made me laugh. Maybe it’ll tide us over until Red makes up his next bawdy punchline.

Enjoy
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 am [Reply]

#147 ThisWas – Sounds like it! I could not believe it when it happened, it was just so stunningly, foobishly DUMB. Let’s put all the money in town in One Movable Building with Wheels On It! Geez Louise! And to my knowledge, no one was caught.

It’s like living next to Snuffy Smith, and don’t think that doesn’t give me pause.
Mack
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 am [Reply]

133 – The original run of Popeye is totally cracked out and pretty wonderful. In the wiffle hen storyline, I believe Olive’s boyfriend and brother try to get rid of her by sending her off to try to buy a dime’s worth of longitude. Luckily, they got their comeuppance when both were effectively dropped from the strip and Olive got to date the new hero, Popeye.
commodorejohn
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:48 am [Reply]

A3G – You know what she’s in the mood for.

Archie – Who’s Leroy?

BB – If I never see an anthropomorphized building again, it’ll be too soon.

Blondie – is actually kinda funny.

Crankshaft – Ah ha ha, she wanted to keep her password a secret from her son, but then she forgot what it was! Because she’s senile! That’ll teach her to try and be independent at her age! Laugh riot!

Crock – The really terrifying thing is that he seems to mean that she’s taken the same cellphone twice. Meaning she somehow ate it, evacuated it (through which orifice is left to our horrified imaginations,) and then ate it again. Stephen King? You got nothing on Crock.

Curtis – Brilliant insanity, thy name is Curtis.

DT – Please pick him up hitchhiking, whoever you are…

FC – Man, Bil Keane had a much better eye for detail back in the day. Check out the motion lines and lovingly-rendered compressed air.

FOOB – She calls him a square, and he pillow-whips her savagely enough to make his glasses fly off ala Mark Trail. Home sweet home, huh? Besides, “square” is pretty mild for a middle-aged man who basically lives in his backyard, playing with trains. I’d pick something along the lines of “coot,” or maybe “retard.” And for Elly I’d go for “meddling psycho-bitch from Hell,” or words to that effect.

FW – “I’ll just stay here then, shall I?”

GA – Derle just keeps getting awesomer. Maybe Slim should have asked about the costs of dropping a meteorite before buying it. I guess it must’ve been the last one, or maybe the bidding was just really intense.

GT – I’m awaiting the Scooby-Doo pull-off-the-mask “the guitarist was really the drunk guy all along!” reveal. Eagerly.

H&L – I really, really hope this isn’t implying that Dot and Ditto were originally identical twins rather than the fraternal twins I’d assumed them to be.

JP – Shipping, construction, and telecommunications!? This is even more insidious than I thought!

Luann – These reruns are giving me a brand-new appreciation for just how well-drawn modern Luann is. This one appears to have been hastily inked with a Sharpie five minutes before tee time.

MF – Mallard made me laugh today. I marked it on the calendar.

MT – Oh yes. Ohhhhhh yes. Every time this happens, it’s better than the last.

MW – It’s like they tried to guess what issues FOOB and FW hadn’t already tackled and “pedophilia” was the first item on the list.

Popeye – Okay. Much like I used to never give Rex Morgan a second glance and though Judge Parker was for boring old people, I thought when I first arrived here that Popeye was probably one of those zombie strips like Tiger that just keeps going and going in the same old, same old boring blandness. No. I was very wrong to assume this. Popeye is now on my reading list.

RMMD – Full-bust view of lovingly-shaded June Morgan? I heartily approve.

Edison Lee – strives desperately for relevance to anything, but continually falls into the kind of painful unhipness that Archie achieves when it makes cellphone jokes.

TDIET – Just when you think this strip can’t get funnier, Scaduto introduces hippies into the equation. Still, this has great potential for a FOOB mashup.
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 am [Reply]

Today’s Coffee Talk is the worst batch of crap I’ve ever seen from that site. I found this one particularly painful:

The majority of your characters are the kind of people we all WISH we were, especially when dealing with those few characters you create who more closely resemble the people we often are instead. Your strip is reality-PLUS; life as it should be. It inspires. Somewhere, someone has read a strip with Mira Sobinski in it, seen an embarrassing reflection of herself, and vowed to change. Perhaps a man has read a strip with a tender moment between John and Liz, and gone to hug his own daughter. Who hasn’t at some point wished she was as good a mother as Ellie?
FBorFW goes beyond just morning entertainment; it becomes the mirror by which we measure ourselves. What a lofty achievement for a simple comic strip!

LESLI, Ohio

True Fable, thank you for Pasty White Folks. We’ve needed an antidote.
Anonymous
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:01 am [Reply]

152 – Leroy must be Archie’s cabana boy. I can just see him working on Arch with the baby oil coated handle of his sand sculpting device, while Arch slips it to Ronnie.
Joe Btfsplk
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:02 am [Reply]

Mark Trail – Mark is in big trouble here. He hasn’t seen Buzzard from the front yet, and doesn’t know that the villain is clean-shaven. The Fist-O-Justice will be powerless against him!
commodorejohn
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 am [Reply]

Hmm, Coffee Talk has updated? Well, they didn’t print mine, but I’ll wait until the next one before concluding that they’re not going to do so.
Tweeks_Coffee
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:06 am [Reply]

8/2

Archie: Wait… who the hell’s Leroy?

DT: It’s a good thing they told me what APB stodd for because I’ve never heard that entirely common acronym before. Did they ever tell us what CIA stood for?

FOOB: Oh good, April’s learning to be less of a spoiled brat, apparently. Now she can fill the role of the vanilla baby sister in this vanilla family.

FW: You know, having no dialogue makes this strip much easier to read. In fact, I think they should have every strip be dialogueless from now on. It’s not like I’d really miss the puns.

GA: Man, old Derle is really cleaning out Slim. Must be especially rough considering that Slim probably put down a couple million for that rock already.

(DT)GT: Man, this Bruce Britt fellow looks like the illegitimate child of Lionel Richie and a Muppet.

MT: Even Sam’s boob is turning against her and encouraging Buzzard. Luckily Mark is there to soon deliver the RHOJ.
jaybrrd
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 am [Reply]

FOOB: There’s no denying that Canada is more socially progressive than the rest of North America and has much to teach us in many ways. Today, we learn that horrific scenes of child abuse are HILARIOUS.

Thanks, Lynn!
Chloe The Cat
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:17 am [Reply]

Mr. Power, I LOVE your comic!
MossMoses
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:21 am [Reply]

“I’m your worst nightmare”. Mark apparently is unaware of Buzzard’s even worse recurring nightmare where he’s cleaning out the game bird shit pit and becomes overcome by the fumes, succumbs, falls into the pit and dies…

Mary Worth should have mentioned Woody Allen and Sun Yi, Anna Nicole and her geezer or perhaps Jack and Marlena Kent-Cook as examples of non-hiding age disparity couples. Mentioning Toeby and Professor Ian Cameron’s marriage may have been Mary’s subtle way of convincing Dawn to stick with a guy her age, implying that Drew is going to turn into an obese, chinbearded knowitall blowhard in a few years and she’ll be sorry she ever married him. The blowhard process has already started…
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:23 am [Reply]

#137 True Fable: Loved the last MT ending best!
MonkeyHawk
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 am [Reply]

“I am your worst nightmare!”

Oh, man! You mean the one about me showing up for my first day at high school and I’m looking for my classroom and I can’t find it and the cutest girl in school who I’ve got a crush on asks if she can help me and I look down and realize I’ve forgotten to put on my pants and I’ve got a boner sticking out of my tighty-whities?

“Uhm, no. Your other worst nightmare.”

Geez! You mean the one where I’m falling off a cliff and I know I have to wake up before I hit bottom or I’ll die in my sleep?!

“No, no. I’m a different worst nightmare, the one–”

–Where I raise wild game and release them at the ends of airports and some guy who fancies himself to be a wildlife expert but can’t tell the difference between a male mallard and a female and draws giant talking chipmunks and bears that don’t understand animosity and is setting himself up for a lawsuit if he flashing his Fists of Fury against a guy who raises wild birds and releases them into the wild thereby violating no law whatsoever? That nightmare?”

Fuck it, Buzzard. Release the damned birds.
El Santo
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 am [Reply]

#162 – (Long Live) Gil Thorp — Is Bruce Britt the same banjo player from the original Gail Martin picture (the one with the braid)? Because if he is … man, brother’s really let himself go, you know what I’m sayin’?
Dr. Mad
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:29 am [Reply]

One word for LJ’s planned retarded bastard of a hybrid strip -miscegenation. And one other word for her continued participation in making this fair blue-green planet a greater vale of tears – bummer.
#124 Former Ben – I too don’t sing, although not under court orders, my singing makes the animals restless for blocks and blocks. It’s a real shame, ’cause I know all the words to “Wolverton Mountain,” too.
NightRaven
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:30 am [Reply]

I want to try completing Mark Trail sentences too!

“I’m your worst nightmare…. a parkranger with a fist of justice!”
Chat Noir
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 am [Reply]

110 – Gulielma — it is sick and twisted that I read those August FOOB letters closely enough to know that April was asked to write her letter a little earlier than the others because she had to go to the farm. The level of mundane detail that goes into those accursed missives boggles the mind.

Also, I am hoping April’s letter to her brother was a promise to neuter Michael himself.
Jason
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 am [Reply]

Herb and Jamaal: Today’s oh so clever “Paper or Plastic” gag has made me realize that if something ever happened to the H&J artist, I could probably take over if I practiced drawing the characters. There are only 4 types of H&J strips:

1. The really really old cliched joke: like today’s strip. Simply have Herb and Jamaal say things like, “I’m working hard today, Jamaal” and then Jamaal could say “working hard or hardly working” and then you have a strip.

2. strips about current events: However you can never actually name anything specificallly. Like you can’t say “George W. Bush and the Iraq War.” Instead you say, “The current United States President and his conflict in the middle east.” I’m not sure why this is but you can’t name public figures by their actual names in this strip.

3. The characters doing normal everyday tasks while there are quotes from prominent African American authors over their heads.

4. Continuing the story about Jamaal and his romance with whats her face with will probably never ever ever be resolved because no one cares.

and that is how you write Herb and Jamaal.
Paperback Rifler
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 am [Reply]

God bless you, True Fable! Your Foob / Mark Trail / Cancer Cancercancer mockups are truly wonderful! And those are nice pictures, too; although I don’t think that I’ll ever be convinced that “Roopville” is not one of them there made-up places and that the “Roopville City Hall” in the picture is not, in fact, just a facade from a movie studio backlot, sort of like in Blazing Saddles. (Cue Madeline Kahn: “It’s Twooo! It’s Twooo!”)

(THTI) Foob: It’s actually an amusing installment today, but the sentiment in the first two panels makes me a little sad. Apparently, April has learned to count her blessings, which would be a great thing except that the accompanying message would seem to be that she should never try to get, or even express a desire for, something better or different than the “perfect” life that she already has. After all, what did she learn from this telethon experience? She learned that she should not wish for fame or for a successful musical career because it would all get messed up by Becky’s dad, I guess. She also learned from her own performance that foobs clap for crap as though it’s manna, but I think she might have already had that all figured out.

Funky Winkerbean: I’ve gotta give Batiuk kudos for an effective and nicely understated installment today. Now, I know that a lot of you cynics out there might think that Batiuk resorted to the long shot and the dialogue-free format today because he’s otherwise incapable of showing his characters engaging in any action without their smirking and making puns. Well, all you Batiuk detractors, I only have this to say: Dude, I was thinking exactly the same thing! That is so weird!
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am [Reply]

#126 True Fable –

True Fable? You’re True Fable? I had imagined you as more … grizzled. Sort of like Walter Brennan in The Real McCoys. Something about Roopville had OshBGosh overalls written all over it. Maybe they’re under the T-shirt. In any case PWF#2 is Rooptastic. I’ve printed it and added it to the stack of your riffs that lies (face down) on my desk. They would require all too much ‘splainin’ ‘round here.
smacky
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am [Reply]

# 153: I Pity the Foob,

“Perhaps a man has read a strip with a tender moment between John and Liz, and gone to hug his own daughter…”

Perhaps that man then picked up a tube sock with a bar of soap in it…

Sigh. I feel like Lou Grant every time I read something like that:

Lou [to Mary]: “You’ve got spunk… I HATE SPUNK!!”
Major Hooples Boarding House
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:41 am [Reply]

Mark Trail sentence contest:

“I’m your worst nightmare… I told Lynn Johnson to keep on cartooning!“
katherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:46 am [Reply]

167 — you forgot a healthy pinch of homoerotic subtext!

Wow, it is amazing how many mudges have passed through Athens! We should get together and, well, read the funnies.

111 — I agree that Sputh Campus sucks the snark right out of ya. I got 2 (completely unrelated) degrees on that end of the world and consequently am no longer funny at all.

98– I’m the one in the ancient red sentra singing to myself because my radio died. I’m going to look at your website now and try to figure out if I know you!
Mamzelle Hepzibah
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:51 am [Reply]

Forgive me if someone’s posted this already, but speaking of meteorite attacks! Did you see this New Yorker cartoon from the current issue?
Mamzelle Hepzibah
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 am [Reply]

(Caption is: “I begged him to get help.”)
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 am [Reply]

Credit Where Credit is Due:

Yesterthread Fizzy Logic: I love the National Curmudgeon Con, and I hope you will come and contribute your fizzy logic to all proceedings. (Did I ever tell you, BTW, that I love your nom de blog?) Did I ever tell anyone that I attended the very, very first Star Trek Con?

Yesterthread Squid Countess: LOL re your too-cute plush lizard.

Yesterthread Lynn Johnston news: Dismay is way too mild a term for how this makes me feel. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a word for this feeling.

And now I will get to today’s thread, my comments to be posted later, on who knows what thread, but I must say that True Fable and Roopville fill my heart with delight. TF, you are a fine-looking man, and SO YOUNG!
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am [Reply]

#169 gh – ALL my lies are done facing down! Oh wait…never mind. It’s still true, though.

Yeah, Roopville does evoke a overall’ed Walter Brennan cackling at the revenooers kind of mental picture. I even have a pair of overalls somewhere in the recesses of my closet. I plan to learn to whittle and spit as part of the strategy to blend into the woodwork around here. As soon as I get my Mark Trail FO’J Merit Badge, I’ll be on my way to being a natural born Roopvillain.
Gabe
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am [Reply]

165 NightRaven: He’s a journalist, not a park ranger! That’s why he’s there! Doing a story on bird strikes! Boxcar!

(my other hobby besides correcting people on the real names of the Plugger monstrosities is correct people on Mark Trail’s job. Yes, I am a sad, sad man.)
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:57 am [Reply]

“I’m your worst nightmare … Pee-wee Herman in a khaki shirt.”
rosiethelurker
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:59 am [Reply]

The last frame in today’s Mark Trail nearly caused me to spit out my salad! “I’m your worst nightmare” might be the best line ever to come out of Mark Trail to date. It is so intense and dark — not unlike MT himself. But I have to say, the anticipation is too much for me! Of course the Fists O’ Justice (aka FOJ) will be unleashed but how? Will he punch Buzzard so hard his overalls will fall off? He’ll suddenly become skinny? Maybe MT will pummel Buzzard so bad his entire hillbilly family will feel it?
Cedar
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

Did someone from here submit the TDIET for today? Because it might be the most awesome TDIET ever.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/tdiet.asp?date=20070802

The “Good riddance!” the “Mom ol’ gal” and “Pop person,” which don’t make any sense, the ponytail and buck teeth, the bizarre reference to writing an autobiography. . . I LOVE IT.
Herro!
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm [Reply]

“Herro!: Or-e-gun. And Willamette rhymes with dammit, although if you are in southern Cal. no one will care about the latter, probably. In the northwest, though, better get it right or people will sneer at you, in a west coast laid back sort of way.”

Okay, Brown-eyed girl, you win. I got “Oregon” right, but I have to admit I don’t know where Willamette is. So I take back my “not another word” speech from before. I’m in NorCal, so I might meet someone who may care. But I’m looking forward to seeing a laid-back west coast sneer…that should be interesting. (Is it really that laid-back here? I don’t know that many people, really just my boyfriend, and he’s very Type A, while I’m pretty laid back. I sort of got the feeling that the east-coast/west-coast attitudes got mixed up along the way.)

Tidbit: West Virginia has a town called Hurricane. The locals call it “Hurken.” They know how to pronounce “hurricane,” but they swear that particular town is “Hurken.”
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:02 pm [Reply]

#175 You are far too kind and generous for a mere mortal. Ergo you must be an angel, my dear Divine O’Fogeyette.
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:08 pm [Reply]

And speaking of NYer cartoons, I’ve narrowed my caption entry to two possibles, each ~~mediocre~~ brilliant in its own right.

Once they rely on you for food, they aren’t hard to domesticate.

and

It just showed up one day. Could prove handy.

Any ‘druthers?

And speaking of voting, SecretMargo, I voted for Lio yesterday too.
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm [Reply]

#181 Near Roopville is the town of Buchanan, which normal humanoids pronounce B’YOUcannon, but for some reason, God only knows why, the locals insist on calling it BUCK-cannon. ??? Damn hillbillies. We never had a President BUCKcannon. They agree that B’YOUcannon was for whom the town was named, but BUCKcannon is what you call the town.

Now some big ol’ boy the size of a mountain range is going to come looking for me and now he’ll know where I live and what I look like. Well, I’ll tell him I’m Roy Orbison Before He Died. That’ll give me time enough to get away before he figures it out.
“Huh-uh, you ain’t got no git-tar.”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm [Reply]

gh: they’re both pretty good, and they both have that slightly understated style that might fit the New Yorker. My immediate gut reaction was to prefer the second, but I think both are worthy contenders.
aquagirl2
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

All right. Which one of you is sending the nasty notes to Gail Martin?

Is it just me, or were the comics, like, ridiculously unfunny today? Was there a joke in Beetle Bailey that got cut off by accident, or what? And the Family Circus? I mean, I KNOW, it’s the Family Circus. But usually you can identify what is supposed to maybe be on some planet to some unidentifiable life forms a “joke” if joke meant something not funny. But today, I’m just lost. “we have a flat tire!” Well, I’ve got one for you guys. “I just put in a load of laundry!” HAHAHAHAHA! What do you think? Should I start a humour blog of my very own? By the way, “I’m wearing a shirt!” No, stop, I’m killing me!
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

#176 – nice parodies.
OK, Photoshoppers, it’s time to create an Official FOJ Badge!

SlyFox –
Manic
Mangy
Mediocre
Mess

I want a Count Weirdly (or Cassandra) T-shirt!
Calico
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:18 pm [Reply]

8/2 My Cage –
Re: stupid Monthy letters, Mike Patterfoob is just dying to get involved here.
Eh, Readers? [formerly Kip W]
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:18 pm [Reply]

Archie – Archie looks at Leroy with that helpless expression because Leroy is Archie’s love child by Big Ethel. (Strangely, Reggie looks at him the same way.)

DtM – Say what you will, I still respect the way they keep Ruff as a real dog in this strip. No thought balloons, no stamp collection, no sidelong glance out at the reader.

MF – No matter what order I read the little paragraphs in this, it makes no sense. Is this the Chewbacca Defense? Why is the goddamn duck even in this strip?

S-M – Longtime readers can tell you who Jameson’s really in love with, and his first two names are “The” and “Amazing.”

Speaking of readers, I’ve decided on a handle. Impulsively! After considering Caspar Milquetoast, Bottleneck, Hatlo’s Hat, and others — all of them having their own particular charms — I went for the one that sums up the refrain of British comic weeklies, with their frequent turning aside to ask the reader how they’re enjoying the strip. I’m belabouring the point with this lengthy explanation, and I’ll hammer it into the ground by keeping my name next to it for the next few days.

…Eh, Readers?
AhClem
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm [Reply]

#153 I Pity The Foob -
Man, I am so glad I don’t read Coffee Talk. There isn’t enough insulin in the world that could save from that steaming heap of mega-glurge.
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:20 pm [Reply]

There’s a town in Colorado that some in this area call “Boona Vista,” though its spelling is Buena Vista. The same ones pronounce Pueblo as “Pee-eb-lo.” Weird. My husband and I enjoy calling Paonia “Pee-on-ya,” though.
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

Jamus–it’s so nice to read the continuing travels of The Tarzana Nights and its motley crew.

20 Gadge Cubic, I’m sure there is a Zen koan for the sight of one leg crossing.

39 Mibbitmaker: I agree; Funky was very nicely done today. Even touching.

40 Spider Brick: Mazel Tov. I hope you like cold weather. And welcome home!

Willethompson: “Rod Serling on the brown acid while trapped in a Munsch woodcut reciting The Bald Soprano eating a peyote burrito” is one of the most awesome figures of speech I have ever seen. And quite a coincidence (anyone get the reference?).

126 True Fable: LOUD APPLAUSE. I’ll read the Funky one later. I gotta get to the taxes now.

183 gh: I vote for the first one.
Eh, Readers? [still formerly Kip W]
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm [Reply]

willethompson @84 – I guess with Mark showing up, Junior ain’t gonna make Candy squeal like a pig. Anyway, kudos on the shout-out to The Bald Soprano. Tres amusing show.

Dr. Mad @109 – From Benchley:

WELSH SONG
Wirion digon gul noch noch
With a hey down derry and a ddwpllwdpoch
Ei gsith och deb nam rydidd gam
With a hey derry di-do caethion pam…

teenchy @111 – UGA? Count your blessings! I went to Georgia Southern for a couple of years in the early 80s.

B @133 – Wow! They quoted Jerry Beck — cool. Popeye, in fact, gained his fabled might from the selfsame Whiffle Hen. After he was shot up, he spent the night petting the bird, which confers good luck. At the end of the night, he comes out and faces the baddie, who says he thought he’d shot him, and Popeye opens his shirt and says “What’cher think these is? Button holes?”

gh @178 – wins

I Pity The Foob @191 – It’s Byoona (2 syllables) Vista, very much like pee-eblo.

…Eh, Readers?
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm [Reply]

AhClem—I know what you mean. I kind of wonder about myself, since it’s become my sick little ritual to visit there each morning.
Elly's Evil Twin
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm [Reply]

#184 – True Fable – While we’re on the subject of weird pronouncations of Georgia towns, how can we leave out Cairo (KAY-row) ???
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

185: Thanks gh! The residents of Spoe-can will thank you later.

Also: I like the “domesticated” punchline, good renovation of the first iteration.

And to weigh in: I also enjoyed today’s FBoFW, though I wish the pun had been less awkward. But I realize that that’s tantamount to asking the moon to be less cheesy, so I’ll take what I can get.

Finally: Doonesbury’s “old woman gets action, brags to her son about it” is great and I unironically love it. So there, Crankshaft.

PS: Welcome back, SSB!
Mitsuki Matsuya
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:33 pm [Reply]

175/D O’F on the Lynn Johnston news: My feeling could be described as mind-wringing loathing.
SueAnn Suagean, Attorney at Law
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

To: True Fable
Re: Flight

Dear Sir,

In what I can only assume is a consequence of my previous correspondence, I see that you are now what we in the legal trade term “on the lamb”. As my professional travels take me no further south than the Washington D.C. area (Condi! Text me!), and Roopville and Canada have a mutual no-extradition policy, my employer has instructed me to move on to other violations of Lynn Johnston, Inc. proprietary materials that continue to appear on this website. She also mentioned something about remanding your case to the Orbital Death Ray division. FYI, hon.

In any event, I’m going to mark this one as a “win” for me. SAS! SAS! SAS!

Warmest regards,
SueAnn
katherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

195 — Or how about Taliaferro county? (pronounced “Toliver”). Georgia also has a Byoona Vista too. There are a couple other wierd ones, can’t think of them off the top of my head.
El Santo
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

#189 — Argggh! Did you really have to raise to possibility of J. Jonah Jameson/Spider-Man slash fiction? Gah, unclean, unclean!
Herro!
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:42 pm [Reply]

“Now some big ol’ boy the size of a mountain range is going to come looking for me and now he’ll know where I live and what I look like.”

True Fable, you’re assuming said big ol’ boy is capable of logging onto the Internet, reading that message, and finding your IP address. I think you’re going to be okay.

All else fails, go to Hurken, Pee-on-ya, Spoe-can, or another town in WVa that actually IS called Buckhannon. (Don’t ask; I don’t know.)
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm [Reply]

#193 Eh, Readers – Oh, back when Georgia Southern was THE premiere Party School of the South! My daughter will graduate from there this December. My son just transferred from there – too much partying for him, he’s going into pre-med. Playing doctor was so much fun, he’s going to give the real thing a shot.
#195 Elly’s Evil Twin – (I love your s/n!) No, we can’t leave out Cairo, nor Tallapoosa. That sounds like something dirty in Mark Trail. “Mark, you never called me back after That Girl got out of the hospital. I’ll just bet you were off enjoying the tallapoosa on that skanky little ‘ho.”
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:47 pm [Reply]

So South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State, because of the palmetto trees. Except the natives call it the Pal-metto State. As in, “Hey, pal.” And of course every drugstore, car wash, credit union, carpet cleaner, payday lender, trash hauler and liposuction clinic is “The Pal-metto This” and “The Pal-metto That” and it drives me Margoing CRAZY. First, people, it’s not a kind of pal-m tree. Second, it’s the only true nasal short “a” you’ll hear, what with the usual soft, southern drawl and all. I’m no linguist, but somewhere, someone screwed up.

And who remembers when the “t” in “often” was silent?
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm [Reply]

gh: I like the first caption better.
Ghost Riders in the Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm [Reply]

103 SSB, Trainman was probably thinking your ubiquitous unspoken line in today’s FOOB.
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

183. gh. I prefer your first caption. Good Luck!

My homely New Yorker caption puppies are still up for adoption, if anyone feels compelled to enter but doesn’t really want to think about it. If only I could remember what they were….
F. Cecious Lee
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

Katherine beat me to “Toliver County”. Don’t forget La Fayette and Vi enna.
Bill James
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm [Reply]

TrueFable: I still get mailings (asking for money) form the alumni association, (I tried changing my name but they found me out), so I knew they had changed the name. I was never a big sports fan, so I probably wouldn’t have remembered it, except for the time when the President (I think) of the college, whose real name was Dick Dangle, interrupted a speech by Dean Rusk to bring out the school’s basketball tema that was leaving to play in the NAIA finals. (If I remember correctly, they won. I may not remember correctly because there were periods when I drank prodigious amounts of alchohol.)

gh: “And who remembers when the “t” in “often” was silent?”

You mean it’s not?
True Fable
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 pm [Reply]

To: Sue Ann Suagean
Re: Bah

Dear M’am,

The only consequence of our last correspondence is the rise in the heat index between Ontario and here, Legal
Lips. It doesn’t matter what actually happened. The point is, your boss will be led to believe you’ve captured the flag so to speak, before her and she’s not going to be too pleased that her lackey claimed the pole before she did. And baby, you’ve seen how she flaps just thinking about me so don’t hit that “win” column just yet, honey comb.

Ms. Johnston certainly needs to move on to other violations since she’s not getting any action any other way. And what’s this you say, “Orbital Death Ray”? Madam, you dare to besmirch the awesome power of my super charged 55-gallon drum Flamethrower Juice and World’s Most Superflueous Roman Candle, do you?

Have you ever heard of the term, MAGMACANNON? (pronounced just like that) Have you never heard of Galactic Emperor Chennux, he who laid waste to Ontario earlier this year? We’ll see how your puny little Orbital Death Ray stacks up against some good old fashioned Galactic Might, my little Foobian Treasure Trove. I have bushels of means by which to procure said Magmacannon and I would be thrilled, nay, eager to aim it due north for the sheer sport of it. I’m sure the Emperor Himself would find it jolly good sport as well.

I know I warmed your regards good and hot the last time you flared your nostrils in this direction, so mark away, Counselor Cutie-Pie.

Fondlingly yours,

Truman A. Fable
Director of Dalliances
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm [Reply]

True Fable: I just read your Funky composition while on a break from taxes. It actually cheered me up!
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:21 pm [Reply]

#206 Brown-eyed Girl –

I’m going with the first of mine as it won in a landslide 4-1 vote among the curminions.

Gojira was thoughtful enough to kennel all our adoptable puppies here. All have had their shots, so if anyone wants one . . .
Dono
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm [Reply]

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2007/8/2&name=Herb_n_Jamaal

Apologies in case anyone has already noted this, but in today’s Herb and Jamaal, Herb (or Jamaal) has a problem a hell of a lot more dicey than whether to choose paper or plastic: The mofo is nine feet tall.
Bootsy
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

# 203, gh! I hate hearing the “t” pronounced in often; it makes me want to correct people’s grammar, and I never do that. But Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! It’s silent! People, it is silent!

And do they not teach kids in broadcast journalism school to actually look up pronunciations that they do not know? You don’t prnounce the “t” in soften, do you? Same thing.

Not to any of you here, of course. You’re all much too clever to make such a mistake. but it is one of my peeves.
Holly
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm [Reply]

This is a couple of days late, but did they seriously give Jess a showing butt-crack in FW? Or is that her tramp stamp? either way… DISTURBING
nancy
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

I am in awe: Mark told the bird man that Mark is his worst nightmare. I don’t even need to know what NOAA stands for.
stuck funky
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

if anybody read today’s FBOFW and secretly hoped the pillow case was full of canned goods in that last panel, raise your hand.
Mountain Mama
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 pm [Reply]

Herro!: Are you from West Virginia? Represent!

It’s “Hurrikin,” but with the accent, it becomes “Hurken.” I don’t know where Buckhannon comes from, either, but it’s buck-cannon, FYI.

And I saw Spiny Norman mentioning the Capitol Music Hall! I’ve been there and I still lament the loss of Jamboree USA, which was one of the longest running country music radio shows in the country back in the day, as the kids say.

Welcome back, Jamus! Your tales are wondrous indeed.

And I still say if I win the lottery, there will be a ‘Mudgeon Meetup in Baltimore for the ages.
Cedar
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm [Reply]

#216 No way! April is the last decent character. If anything, I laughed at this lame strip just because it contained a slam on John and Elly.
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm [Reply]

#213 Bootsy –

It’s the decline of western [or is that wessern?] civilization, I tell ya! But I’m afraid there are more fabric sofTeners than softeners out there.
Mountain Mama
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm [Reply]

Oh! Capitol Music Hall was mentioned in today’s GT! That’s so cool. I should have known that the lovely Gail would be playing there and not at the pedestrian Wheeling Civic Center.
Broken Skittles
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

First!
Paperback Rifler
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

Okay, time to test my thread-ending powers.

gh, I HATE to hear people pronouncing the “t” in “often!” Honestly, the silent “t” in “often” is pretty much the only pronunciation rule about the word “often” that people have to learn, and they STILL DON’T GET IT! Unfortunately, it’s a cruel irony to those of us who care about the rules of the English language that the last English language rule that we learn is that if enough people do something wrong for a long enough time, then it eventually becomes right. For example, take the increasingly common “mis-chee-vee-ous” pronunciation — please!

And now, some bottom-of-the-barrel snark:

Popeye: Blow me down! What a cud-tastrophe!

Gasoline Alley: Don’t let that shyster dupe you with all that “beaucoup bucks” talk, Slim! Just slip him a bottle of whiskey and a baggie of hash, and you can call it even!

Mark Trail:
“I’m your worst nightmare!”
“Wha — But . . . you’re not a circus clown!”
Don’t miss the next exciting chapter of Mark “Rambo” Trail: Fist Blood, Part 2 — The Fistening!

Hi & Lois: Hi gets a disgruntled look on his face as he is indirectly reminded that although the twins have a goodly amount of Lois DNA, they have absolutely no Hi DNA whatsoever.

Family Circus of the Damned: Today’s guest writer — Flannery O’Connor!
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:58 pm [Reply]

#213 Bootsy [or the universe at large] –

It took years to break my daughter of the habit of saying “on accident.” I noticed it somewhere around 1st or 2nd grade: if something wasn’t done on purpose it must have occurred on accident. And all her peers say the same thing! What am I paying taxes for, if not to have her teachers tell them “It’s BY accident, you little shits.”
bats :[
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm [Reply]

22. Fizzy Logic: if you consider Roopville, like Brigadoon, elusive and mythical, does that mean that True Fable might also qualify as elusive and mythical as well?
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm [Reply]

Today’s FC reminds me of the time my brother’s friends tried to smuggle firecrackers out of Tijuana by stashing them inside the hubcaps.

.
Fred
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm [Reply]

Bootsy says:

August 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
# 203, gh! I hate hearing the “t” pronounced in often; it makes me want to correct people’s grammar, and I never do that. But Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! It’s silent! People, it is silent!

And do they not teach kids in broadcast journalism school to actually look up pronunciations that they do not know? You don’t prnounce the “t” in soften, do you? Same thing.

Not to any of you here, of course. You’re all much too clever to make such a mistake. but it is one of my peeves.

I hate people using the word “grammar” incorrectly! It makes me want to correct people’s word choice, and I never do that.

Hey, I kid, because I love.

Also, Dinsdale! DINSDALE!
odinthor
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm [Reply]

Gil Thorp and TDIET — You see, TDIET’s Grimley is Coach Kaz’s on-the-down-low brother, who stole Mom Kaz’s hoop earrings and ran away at age 17, leaving her nothing but the pearl ones to bequeath to Coach K. The coach’s brooding resentment at this horror manifested itself in a personality of ever-conflicting dichotomies, so much the rebel in some ways, so much the establishment square in other ways. Grimley, meanwhile, has gone the way of Casanova as he wanders the world as if he were the hero of a picaresque novel, his lack of looks, charm, intelligence, and ability the only things keeping him from ultimate success. The two brothers will meet someday, perhaps in an episode of Mary Worth; and the decades of rage and misunderstanding will come to an exciting, perhaps tragic, resolution . . .
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:24 pm [Reply]

When did kids start dropping the t in words like mountain, or fountain? Pretty much all I hear anymore is “mow-un.”
bats :[
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm [Reply]

Although you’ve hung up your kareoke mic, True Fable, the uncanny resemblance to Roy Orbison is, um, uncanny — is there any chance that Roy’s divine “Crying” lyrics can be desecrated into “Foobing”?
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:26 pm [Reply]

#222, 223, et al.:
Pet peeves, just to get them off my chest, now that someone else has brought up language:
“length” and “strength” pronounced “lenth” and “strenth.”

Using the word “regime” when you actually mean “regimen.”
Q.: “What’s your diet regime?”
A.: “Actually, you can’t have a diet regime unless your country’s dictator is Dr. Atkins.”

Using “concerning” to mean “worrisome, troubling, of great concern, disturbing, thought-provoking,” or any of the other hundreds of words that already mean this. “Concerning” means “about” or “regarding.”

[pant, pant]

End rant.
JB2
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm [Reply]

FooB today is creepy. A father having a “pillow fight” with his teenage daughter is not appropriate or cute or funny or heart-warming. It’s just plain creepy.

Kid playfully punching parent or hitting parent with pillow: possibly within the realm of normal human behavior (although not with a kid as old as April.)

Unshaven parent hitting kid with pillow, with a big scowl on his face, at 5:00 in the morning, with his glasses flying off his head becuase he’s bashing her so hard, making a “WHUMP” noise: strange and unpleasant to contemplate.
April Patterdoodle
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm [Reply]

222. Paperback Rifler:

As far as I am aware in the England and the UK, unlike in the US, the correct pronunciation of “often” is with a is with a “t” sound. Here is the phonetic pronunciation in a Uk ditionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=55124&dict=CALD

The UK usually pronounces more T’s all around than the US though. Look at how we Americans say “butter” and “utter” and (or as we sound to Brits “budder” and “udder”.)

Interesting topic!
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm [Reply]

#224 – bats :[ – You’ll notice in none of those pictures did Mr. Fable actually cast a shadow.

Spooky, innit?
Allie Cat
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm [Reply]

Word Police – here are my peeves:

1. People who say “conversate”. You can converse. You can have a conversation. You CANNOT conversate.

2. Although it’s in the dictionary, I hate people who want to “orientate” me. You can orient me, or I can go through and orientation. At which point, I’ll be oriented, or maybe disoriented, but not orientated.

I also take issue with people calling Asians “oriental”, but at some point, I have to figure I’m just being a picky bitch.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm [Reply]

Sometimes, those odd town pronunciations just happen.

When I was in 6th grade, my family moved to Gallipolis, Ohio, a charming little burg on the Ohio River, if you consider little burgs on the Ohio River to be charming. While waiting for our furniture to be delivered, my mother went to do some laundry at a handy nearby laundromat. She asked a woman there to clarify something: “How do you pronounce the name of this town?”, expecting something along the lines of “gal-ip-po-LEASE” or “ga-LIP-po-liss”.

The woman’s answer: “Galla-puh-LAY-us.”

So, we went around town saying things like “GallapuhLAYus sure is a pretty town” and “We just moved to GallapuhLAYus” for weeks, garnering much behind-the-back snickering, until someone took it upon themselves to correct us.

It’s “galla-po-LISS.” Which is French for something along the lines of “Chicken City.” I don’t know why.
bats :[
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:33 pm [Reply]

Aaaaah, today’s Family Circus! It’s the Kennedy assassination all over again!
Dennis Jimenez
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:40 pm [Reply]

I was thinking more of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, except Bil isn’t funny – well Chevy isn’t all that funny either, I guess. Man that Beverly D’Angelo is hot, though. What were we talking about?
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm [Reply]

All aboard! for Walley World. Is that Grandma on the roof?
Little Guy
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:54 pm [Reply]

MT: So, Mark is going to make Bird Man take a high school final exam unprepared, naked, and in only five minutes?

Bah on the 3-D NOAA site, unless it includes some sweet Sam/Cherry wocka–cha lovin’.
liz
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

Do you think Roopville is constantly under siege by teenagers in the neighboring town changing all their signs to “Poopville?” It seems like the temptation would be overwhelming.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm [Reply]

240 Liz — kinda like this?
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm [Reply]

Here in western Colorado, we have Strangely (Rangely), Plague (Craig), Urinal (Vernal—although actually it’s in Utah), and of course, Pee-on-ya (the aforementioned Paonia.)
Dennis Jimenez
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm [Reply]

Many years ago, I had an old blackface Fender Bassman 50 amplifier. I’d put a piece of black electrical tape over the B, so it said assman. I cracked myself up back then – maybe it was the weed, though.
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm [Reply]

If we’re sharing our most hated linguistic tics, mine is the use of the word “issue” as a synonym for “problem.” This happens all the time in the tech articles I edit for a living. Generally, you see things like “You may encounter the following issues when using our product”, meaning “Our product does not work in the following ways.” Once when I was working as an office temp, I arrived at my agency’s offices on Friday only to be told that my paycheck wasn’t available because “we’re having an issue with FedEx today”, which may be the origin of my aversion to this use of the word.

On the note of amusingly pronounced towns, there’s always the Rochester suburb of Chili, NY, which is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable and both “i”s long — i.e. like “CHAI-lie”. The town was actually founded by locals who wanted to break away from the town of Riga for varying reasons in the 1820s, and were inspired by the revolutionary movement in Chile (then generally spelled “Chili”) that sought to break away from Spain. I wonder what people from Chile think of the local pronounciation.

Riga, NY’s name is pronounced “REYE-ga”, preditcably.

Josh
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:15 pm [Reply]

#175 – Divine O’F – I reciprocate the love for your moniker – all of them and their evolution. I think your current one is truly representative of you. A more accurate nom de blog for me would be Frizzy Logic, but on the internet you can be whatever you want to be, so here I am. After a Google search of the name, it appears there’s an Australian (or British, I can’t tell) comedian who uses Fizzy Logic as the name of one of his routines, but I came up with my name all by myself and I like it (too). I’ll be keeping it.

The Blue Angels are in town today (and tomorrow and this weekend) and are buzzing by my window just fast enough that I can’t turn around to see them. It’s also hydroplane weekend, which is Seattle’s version of NASCAR – people get in their boats (tending towards yachts, but nobody says that), tether them together out on Lake Washington, invite everyone they know, get stinking drunk, sunburned, and watch really loud boats go round and round in circles and wait to see if one flips over. WOO!

I think I’ll do some gardening and laundry. I’m just no fun anymore.
AhClem
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm [Reply]

It used to be called “Rootpvtillte”, but the “t”s are all silent.
britbike
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm [Reply]

Top pronunciation peeve for me is height. It’s hite, not hithe. I know it’s width, and breadth, but it is NOT hithe.
StrangeRover
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm [Reply]

Spider-Brick:

The original pronunciation was more like g’LIP-Less – which is of course a direct reference to chickens.
gnome de blog
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 pm [Reply]

Re 244:
I’m partial to Weipe, Idaho, which is pronounced WEE-(EYE)PE (two syllables, total). Let your imaginations run wild.
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm [Reply]

Pronunciations: We have many Spanish names around here. The town of Ajo, pronounced “AH-hoe,” is quite often mispronounced by newbies. But what really grinds my bees is people who spell the name of my beloved Tucson as Tuscon.
RhodeMap
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm [Reply]

Just remember that the e in Quonochontaug is silent. If you pronounce it, natives will know you are not from around here and send you swimming with the quahogs.
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm [Reply]

Thanks, Fizzy Logic, for your reciprocal praise for my nom de blog, and for saying that it fits me!
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:31 pm [Reply]

#244 Josh –

“Issue” and about a thousand other weasel words. I think the original intent was to avoid saying bad things, which grew into a lust to say nothing at all. My favorites are words that exist only to sop up all that annoying blank space on a page: “enable”, “support”, “solution” and their ilk.

Curses upon them!
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:34 pm [Reply]

#253 UL — Oh, man, don’t even get me started on “enable.” RAGE … RAGE ….

Josh
Braniff
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:35 pm [Reply]

To 236: Aside from the probable mistresses that Daddy Keane keeps around the household, I can tell him now–

In school I learned about Jack Kennedy,
Jack Kennedy was a hero of mine,
Mr. Keane, you’re no Jack Kennedy!
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm [Reply]

#250 Divine O’F — and if anyone doesn’t know the C in Tucson is silent, they should be indicted!
Tomcat
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pm [Reply]

anyone know a direct email address to Josh himself?
bats :[
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:42 pm [Reply]

245. Fizzy Logic: the Blue Angels were in Tucson in March…I never went to the airshow, since the two days before it they practiced over our neighborhood. You Know They’re Close when you have excreble vision like I do, and can still read “Blue Angels” on the jet as it’s screaming by. Also standing on the curb and seeing one coming up the road is pretty neat.
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:43 pm [Reply]

#257 Tomcat — Click on the “E-mail Josh” link in the sidebar … or just e-mail me at blogfrontp@jfruh.com.

Josh
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm [Reply]

Since I’m an editor, I have numerous linguistic peeves.

My biggest is people who use “comprised” or “comprising.” At all. I put out a blanket rule in my newsroom that nobody was to use that word in any way, because nobody uses it right. It doesn’t mean “composed,” “made up of” or “including”.

The United States of America is made up of 50 states.
-BUT- 50 states comprise the Union.

See? Comprising is done by the units, not the whole. Everybody gets this wrong.

Another one I hate: Using “located at” when you just mean “at.”
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm [Reply]

Um, SSB #260, not to drag out professional drity laundry, but I’m pretty sure that comprise does mean “consists of”. The dictionary I use (Oxford American, for what it’s worth) actually uses “The country comprises 20 states” as its example sentence for the first meaning.

If I’m wrong, anyway, I’ve screwed up a whoooole lot of tech articles, as it is in fact a word tech authors love. I don’t like it generally because of its similarity to other words with similar definitions, but I’ve stopped resisting for the most part.

Josh
StrangeRover
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:53 pm [Reply]

…on town names: I come from Indiana, which is choc-full of bizzaro town pronunciations.

Peru = PEE-rue
Milan = MY-lun
and of course:
Versailles = vrr-SAILS

ps. I don’t live there anymore…
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm [Reply]

#260 SSB –

I do the opposite — stick “comprise” in right, so people have to look it up (just in case) before correcting me.

It sometimes helps to tell people it shares the root of “prison” — something that holds or contains things. But frankly, it’s all a rear-guard action — “compose” and “comprise” will be synonyms within a decade.

And HEY! while I’m at it, let me rail on the use of “around” as the universal technology-and-consulting preposition. I think it started at Stanford, spread to HP, and is now near-universal in the Valley. I love me a carefully-chosen preposition (athwart!), and I hate, hate, hate usages like, “we’re enabling a rage support solution around implementation timetable issues.”

(And “rage support” should be hyphenated, God damn it!)

There. I feel much better. Back to work!
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm [Reply]

A minor snark offering:

MT:All I can say about today’s strip is BWAHAHAHA!

RMMD: Does June think she is in MT? Why does she assume someone wants Heather out of the way? Maybe they want Hugh out of the way. Or maybe it’s Elvis, and he wants June or Nikki out of the way. Or maybe it’s some neighbor who doesn’t like the Morgans and wants them all out of the way. Or maybe it’s an alien planning to build an intergalactic bypass, and he wants the whole neighborhood out of the way. Or maybe it’s someone who just likes big explosions. Tsk.
Cedar
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm [Reply]

I often say “I could care less” or “I could give a flip” and my snotty grammar friends are always like “Nope nope nope. That’s wrong.” But I know exactly what I’m saying. It’s like, “See how little I care right now? I could care less than this,” or “I COULD give a flip. . . but I don’t really want to.”
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:03 pm [Reply]

256 Skullturf Q B: BWAHAHA! Actually, many people (mis)pronounce it TUCK-sahn. Some spell it Tuxon.
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:07 pm [Reply]

#264 Divine O’F –

It could be Snotty Grammar Friend Uncle Lumpy trying to blow up Cedar!

(Technically, of course, Uncle Lumpy is a Snotty Usage Friend, but he promised his therapist he wouldn’t insist on such narrow distinctions. And to stop referring to him, er, myself in the third person.)
katherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 pm [Reply]

240 — A friend of mine routinely vandalized the road sign for Lunt, Vermont. It was just so easy to do….

My linguistic pet peeve that makes me want to tear off people’s faces when they use it is “irregardless”.

Also, “disinterested”=unbiased. “uninterested”=not interested.
/frothing at mouth
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm [Reply]

Did somebody say linguistic peeves?
Female/male=adjective
Woman/man=noun
Is that so hard to remember?

When did people decide that using the word ‘basically’ makes them sound more intelligent?

My husband says ‘heighth’ instead of height. The word does exist in the Oxford English Dictionary but I don’t give a friggin rat’s ass. It still pisses me off to hear him say it.

And – can anyone pronounce ‘Natchitoches’?
Squawk
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm [Reply]

MT: “I’m your worst nightmare…Now let’s you just drop them pants.”
willethompson
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:27 pm [Reply]

Josh and UL – word peeve: Solutions. It just grinds my bees into rubber alligators when a product becomes a ’solution.’ It used to be ‘cable,’ then it became ‘connectivity’ but now it’s a margo-quotin’ solution.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:27 pm [Reply]

Divine O’F @ 264 and others: Don’t forget, the explosion did not happen at the Morgan house. June is staying over at Heather’s place (Maison d’Nanny). Rex (not June) is assuming someone wants Heather out of the way because the bomb was in Heather’s car parked outside Heather’s house. June and Rex don’t live there, and Hugh doesn’t even have a car there — he was chauffeured by Rex. Heather is the obvious target. (Especially since Hugh was seen talking to his mole on the Avery board and telling them not to take just such a step. This conversation took place just yesterday, strip-time.)
Paperback Rifler
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

232. And that is why we broke away from England. Well, that and taxes or something. The Brits do have some inexplicable pronunciation quirks, though, like how they say “alumin-i-um” for “aluminum.” Also, some of their place names are seriously heewhacked out; I mean, there are simply too many letters in “Gloucestershire” for it to be pronounced “glosster-sheer”! Curses upon you, Von!

268. So did your friend alter the sign so that it read, “Lunt, Vermuth”? Scandalous!
Dennis Jimenez
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm [Reply]

I’ll throw out people who use mute for moot. If you are tellling me about a mute point, I wish I was lucky enough not to have to hear it.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

269 Trotz, an old joke:

Two tourists were driving through Louisiana. As they were approaching Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town. When they stopped for lunch, one tourist asked the employee, “Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are, very slowly?” The guy leaned over the counter and said, “Burrrrrr-gerrrrr Kiiinnnggg.”

I believe it’s something like “NACK uh tish.”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm [Reply]

#268 and #273 — I suppose they could also alter the sign so that the name of the town appeared to be “Lint”. Take that! Zing!
Dennis Jimenez
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm [Reply]

Oh, another one – skewed and skewered. Those facts have been skewered – in fact your whole discussion has been impaled on a bloody pole. I thought it was really funny – a mangement guy used it once where I work, and pretty soon other people who had to know better were using it, too. There were fact kabobs all over the place – I thought it was hilarious.
Ribinin
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm [Reply]

#213 Bootsy – The “t” in “soften” is silent?

I’m going to have to get me a sody-pop and study on that one. I may have an issue with the “t” being silent. Or I might not be able to care less.
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm [Reply]

#271 Wille –

For a while in the late ’80s and early ’90s, “solutions” comprised products and services. Thus a “cable” (product), combined with the act of “plugging it in” (service), became a “connectivity solution.”

Alas, everybody thought that “solution” thing was pretty keen, and the distinction is now lost to the ages.
Gal Friday
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm [Reply]

#155–MT: I, too, had been worrying about Mark’s upcoming inability to knock any facial hair off of Buzzard!

Re: weasel words–actually used in meetings where I work: “Your comments have been captured.”
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

OK, so I was totally sure that I emailed this to Josh, but now I can’t find it in my sent folder. Perhaps it has already been posted? It made me laugh and laugh.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/01/popeye_vs_anime_cart.html
Gabe
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

I have a friend incapable of saying head or stomach. It’s always noggin or tummy.

I hate that. I’m very petty.
katherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

273,276 — you guys…..
273 — actually, I see the logic in aluminium (which my German mother — to distinguish her from all my other mothers — insists on saying). It fits in with vanadium, polonium, and many other elements which I have long forgotten.
MonkeyHawk
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm [Reply]

Okay, on language tics:

I really want to murder someone when I hear stuff like, “What a memorable day for he and his family.” Sportscasters are the worst.

Or when someone says something like, “And then I seen the tornado set down on the other side of the trailer park.” (I grew up in Kansas, and when ever I hear someone talk about how they “seen” something, I’m confident they grew up in a trailer park. Not a “mobile home community,” mind you. A trailer park.)

(As a side note: I learned this summer that everyone mispronounces the original pronunciation of “Mobile Home.” Turns out, at the end of WWII there were plenty of proposals offered to meet the demand of inexpensive manufactured housing based on the infrastructure that supported America’s war effort. Buckminster Fuller developed the all-aluminum Dymaxion House to adapt Wichita’s aircraft industry into making pre-fabs. The winning design, though, came from Mobile, Alabama and was, for several years, referred to as the “mo-BEEL” home.

(Wichita, by the way, sits on the banks of the “ar-KAN-sas” river, elsewhere known as the “ARE-ken-saw.”)

“Baltimore” is known to natives as “ballamer.” “Louisville” is “loovill.” And who knows how people really pronounce “New Orleans?.”

“Utilize?! When is it EVER better than “use?”

When I was learning how to edit, the rule of thumb was fewer letters is always better; fewer sylables is always better. (Oh, and don’t get me started on “fewer” and “less.”)

I also hate people who overuse parenthesis.

D’oh!
Gal Friday
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

Trivia in Casablanca: Humphrey Bogart’s Sam pronounces bourbon “bore-bun” because it was only recently popular and he didn’t know how to pronounce.
El Santo
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:00 pm [Reply]

I work with a few Brits and they always use “alu-min-i-um.” It always draws me out of conversation, but doesn’t bug me too much because it is kinda cool.

Words that bug me: “Utilize”; it kills me when most of the time, people can just say “use”

Phrase that really really bugs me: “Let’s touch base.” I don’t know why. I guess it sounds both smug and low-brow at the same time. Every time I hear it, I’ve got to stop myself from balling my fists.
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 pm [Reply]

stinky pete
I can’t wait to use that joke at the Christmas Festival.
I’m pretty sure it’s Nacht-i-TOCH-es. If not, why the hell do they spell it that way, dammit!
And will somebody please pass me the ‘Tony Cha-cheeries’?
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm [Reply]

#258 – bats :[ – I’m on the 29th floor (of a 40-story bldg), which you think would make for good Blue Angel viewing – but there’s another 40-story building, and more impedingly, a 76-story building next door blocking much of my view. But I have been on the ground when they fly right over, it’s very cool. I just wish I didn’t have to work – stupid work! Or should I say, stupid “work”!
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:05 pm [Reply]

#269 – My mom says heighth, too. Drives me bonkers.

Now, as someone who had dreams of being a linguist, I have a tendency to be a little more open to people’s idomatic speech than others (of course, when I work as an editor, being open doesn’t really help). My philosophy is that, if a lot of people say it, then it must be correct. English speakers tend to get very freaked out by the “state” of our language, as if it were an unchanging thing. But language changes all the time; it doesn’t tend to go to the dogs unless another language takes its place.

That said, for some reason, I know a lot of people who begin their sentences with the accusative form of pronouns. “Him and his wife are getting a divorce.” While I can understand “Billy and me went to the store”, I’m struggling to accept this “Him and his wife are doing something.”
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:06 pm [Reply]

Fizzy – what a shame!

My coworkers are all freaking out over the Blue Angels, making jokes about surface-to-air missiles and what not. But I love them. I never saw an airshow like the Blue Angels until I was 26, so I still find it thrilling as hell.
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

I second the motion of mute for moot. Gets me every time.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 pm [Reply]

There’s a river in central Illinois called the Embarras River, pronounced “EM-br-aw.” I feel, I don’t know, somewhat abashed when pointing that out.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

Dennis, I have a U Massachusetts hat that I ripped the threads out of to get my very own ‘U ass’ merchandise. My mother unwittingly wore it several times at the golf club and got some pretty weird looks.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:12 pm [Reply]

My #1 usage peeve is another Illinoisianism, “That (item) needs washed” where “washed” is usually pronounced “worshed.” My wife, who is highly educated and quite literate in all other respects, still says this, often in front of the kids. So that my kids do not grow up talking like that, I go into full asshat mode and say “Do you mean it needs to be washed?” Why she’s stayed married to me for 25 years is anyone’s guess.
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:13 pm [Reply]

Andrea D – will you be out on the lake this weekend with your Grandstanding Oddballs?
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:14 pm [Reply]

MonkeyHawk
Governor Blanco pronounces the name of the Crescent City like this: New Or…LEE…ans.
But she’s from Lafayette so what the hell does she know.
Some people pronounce it ‘N’Awlins’. And the local Italians, who all sound like they’re from New Yawk, say ‘Noo-wawlins’
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:14 pm [Reply]

260: I am so with you re: “located at,” SSB. Also, the extraneous “at” following “Where are you” makes me twitch a bit.

And while I generally feel that academic writing gets a bad rap from those who feel that any attempt to define something precisely = needless jargon, I do have my pet peeve: the bizarre rise of the word “historicity,” which once had a specific meaning having to do with the interpretation of events in relation to teleological historical narratives (such as Hegelian/Marxist ones) but now is wielded left and right to apparently indicate that stuff happens in conjunction to time passing (”the historicity of language usage,*” “the historicity of gender performance,” etc.). Arrgh! This is the one place where language is supposed to retain its specificity, not lose it hopelessly in a desperate attempt to sound like you’ve read Hegel (the truth is: you probably haven’t)! Just say “history” or “historical context” if that’s what you mean! Or do you just not really mean anything in particular at all? Don’t make me pull this book over...

Okay, maybe only I have this particular problem. Can you tell I’m in the midst of writing? Thank you for your patience.

(And re: Britishisms — the willful reversal of which words are pronounced with an “ah”-type “a” and which get the nasal “pan”-type “a” continues to defy my attempts to parse it ["tacos" and "Kant" = nasal; "can't" = "ah"-type]. Why?).

(Oh and — to…the poster [I forgot which] on the verge of giving up correcting “Oriental” as a racial/ethnic modifier for people — don’t! Keep fighting the good fight! For me, if for no other reason! That really, really makes my skin crawl. Ugggh.)

*and don’t get me started on “usage” vs. “use.” It could get ugly[er].
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm [Reply]

When someone says pronounciation.

Oh, and the misuse of its and it’s, and their, they’re, there, you’re and your, and affect vs. effect. Oh, and the use of improper sentence structure. ; )
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm [Reply]

#280 Gal Friday –

Re: weasel words–actually used in meetings where I work: “Your comments have been captured.”

Thank you for sharing your input with the team.

#293 Andrea and her Oddballs –

The Stanford Crew has a great team shirt:

S
CREW
U
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:18 pm [Reply]

I of course am beyond reproach, but my husband, quite well educated, Seattle born and raised, says “pitcher” when he means “picture”. I blame it on his southern daddy, as that isn’t a regionalism I’ve run into around here before or since.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm [Reply]

fizzy,

Haven’t decided if the Oddballs are coming with me or not. They manage with the fireworks ok, but something about the Blue Angels really ticks them off.

I might putter on down to Madison Park and see what I can see there. It’s been my experience that the Blue Angels try to cover as much space as possible, so unless you have a great view from the top of a tall building, you get a total of maybe three great buzzes before the show is over.

How about you? Going to skip town? That was my other thought – just forget the festivities this year. I’m getting old and cranky, too.
gh
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:23 pm [Reply]

I’m at the halfway point on a road trip [touch base, drive home]. MonkeyHawk beat me to “utilize” and “fewer/less” which my daughter is currently being schooled in — by yours truly. She knows enough to wince and correct herself at this point, but has made the all-too-common mistake of correcting her mother, leaving her with less free time and fewer trips out of the house.

And to think I used to do a slow burn as a kid because my dad would go postal if I called a radio station a “channel” and a Navy ship a “boat.” Nature? Nurture? You decide.
Red Greenback
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm [Reply]

Jaily
willethompson
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:26 pm [Reply]

NC shibboleths (early hebrew for ‘You ain’t from around here, is ya?):

Conetoe: ka-NEE-ta
Casar: KAY-zar
Charlotte: RET-ched at-LAN-ta WAH-nah-bee

OK, I made the last one up…
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:29 pm [Reply]

My children (ages 14 and 12), when asked, “Are those your books?” answer, “These are they.” Proper use of the nominative!

(Or “subjective,” depending on where, when, and in what language you learned grammar).

And good for you, gh, on “less” and “fewer.” I do that one, too, so much so that my children, when corrected, will sigh and say, “I know, I know…countable and non-countable nouns…”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:30 pm [Reply]

Even a lot of Canadians don’t know the correct local ways to pronounce “Saskatchewan” and “Newfoundland”.
I Pity The Foob
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm [Reply]

Real-a-tor
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

To be specific: “Saskatchewan” is a lot like “Oregon”. Just as locals don’t say “Or-e-GONE”, you’re not supposed to say “Saskatche-WAHN” with an emphasized fourth syllable. Instead, the final syllable has a “schwa” sound, as in names like “David Letterman” or “sockeye salmon”.

And “Newfoundland” has the same stress pattern as “understand”. It’s not “NOO-find-lind”, but “Noo-find-LAND”.
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

306 SQB, given that even fewer Americans do, are you going to enlighten us? (or does the use of “enlighten” offend anyone? Jeez, you need your head on a swivel with all the ~~grammar~~ usage cops around).
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:35 pm [Reply]

309 SQB: How prescient.
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:35 pm [Reply]

267 Uncle Lumpy: I’m just as cranky as you, but the one that absolutely drives me up the wall, that my beloved Mr. O’F keeps committing, is confusing LAY and LIE. I HATE HATE HATE that!

272 Spider Brick: Ahem. I think you are jumping to quite a few conclusions of your own. Unless…. could you possibly be paying a wee bit too much unhealthy attention to this story?

284 Monkeyhawk: Yours is my second biggest pet peeve. Give it to he and I, indeed! I just about glorked when I heard Keith Olbermann use it. Then I perklumpled when I realized he does that ALL THE MARGOIN TIME. I do really like parentheses, though, at least when I use them.

Oh, and how could I forget the most annoying and enraging one of all? NU-KEW-LAR! (Pardon me while I go vomit.)
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm [Reply]

I guess I’m going to have to leave the linguistic conversations behind now. This is where I get riled up.
gump worsley
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

Old, very bad Texas joke about town names:

Two guys are in a car and see a sign telling them the town of Mexia (birthplace, btw, of Anna Nicole Smith) is 18 miles away.

One says it’s pronounced “muh-hey-a,” the other insists it’s pronounced “mecksia.” They argue for the 18 miles, and eventually decide to get a definitive answer.

They pull into a Dairy Queen and say to the person takingtheir order, “Real slowly, now, so we can hear it — how do you say the name of this place?”

She scrunches up her face and goes “Daaaare-weeeee Queeeen.”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm [Reply]

Andrea, me and the others hope your not getting to aggravated. :)
katherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:41 pm [Reply]

311 — but it cracks me up that Homer Simpson and George W. Bush pronounce “nuclear” the exact same way!
stinky pete
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:41 pm [Reply]

313 gump, I think mine at 275 is way funnier.
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:42 pm [Reply]

Oh and SSB at 103 (re: what RoboBaron is clutching in today’s DT):

Now that’s a weapon of ass destruction.

I thought that was what our weedy would-be womanizer was about to receive in 9CL (it seems obvious who’s going to end up wearing the pumps in this scenario…)
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:42 pm [Reply]

#311 Divine O’F —

Uncle Lumpy: I’m just as cranky as you

Numinous being or not, them’s fightin’ words, gal! I challenge you to a crank-off.

Mass nouns at 50 paces? Use of parsec as a unit of time? Unhypenated compound adjectives? Noun stacks? Choose your weapons!

I select Bryan A. Garner as my second.
Cedar
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:43 pm [Reply]

#308 I listen to Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe, and he says it like “New-Found-Land.”
Anonymous
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pm [Reply]

23 Brown-eyed Girl and 113 perkybird: Wait…what? NOAA is two hundred years old now? Somehow that seems unlikely, if not unpossible.
Best wishes to all Curmudgeonaters.
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:48 pm [Reply]

320. Mark Trail says NOAA is 200 years old. I believe everything I read in the comics.

(She offers timidly from the hole in which she is hiding from the savage pet peeve cross-fire).
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:49 pm [Reply]

Yeah, it’s hard to render pronunciation in print. I didn’t mean that it’s obligatory that the second syllable in “Newfoundland” has a schwa sound. But if you’re going to stress and enunciate one syllable in particular, and turn the vowels in the unstressed syllables into slightly schwa-like vowels, then “noo-FOUND-lund” is way way worse than “noo-fund-LAND”.
fizzy logic
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:52 pm [Reply]

#301 – Andrea – eh, I don’t know, traffic, you know? Getting in and out of Ballard on a good day in the afternoon on the weekend isn’t pleasant. We’ll see, but my guess is not. The weather isn’t supposed to be that cooperative either. Other than those couple of 90+ days (on the eastside), this has been a cold summer, don’t you think? September better be fantastic is all I have to say, or I’m going to kick Jeff Renner’s ass. Or Andy Wappler. Or whatever local weatherman I can find.
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm [Reply]

#322 SQB –

Yeah, glottal stops are tough, too, making it difficult to ridicule constructions like “di’ ‘in” for “dit’n” for “didn’t.”
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm [Reply]

Skullturf – Har!

I had to really restrain myself at an editing class I attended a couple of weeks ago. The instructor repeatedly said things along the lines of “When we write, we have to be careful. We can’t write like we speak. Because when we speak, we BUTCHER the English language, don’t we?”

I just about threw my book at her. YOU DON’T BUTCHER A LANGUAGE THAT YOU SPEAK FLUENTLY. Spoken English IS English. Written English is not the actual language. Yes, it’s a medium for communicating, but there’s nothing natural about it. Sure, sometimes we write in a manner that is similar to our speech patterns, but the inverse isn’t true, especially when it comes to writing.

Would anyone suggest that non-literate societies, such as Somalia (until very recently, anyway) are “butchering” their own language?

Written language is a wonderful thing to behold, but it’s entirely artificial. We shouldn’t pretend that the way we write is remotely similar to the way we ought to speak.

And if anyone says anything about prepositions at the end of a sentence, my head might explode. And beginning a sentence with a conjunction. I do it all the time. I use ‘they’ as a third person singular pronoun. I split infinitives (because that rule makes NO SENSE).

There. Look what you made me do.
Jamus The Bartender
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 pm [Reply]

95. Will there be loose women there dressed like off-duty strippers? Because if there is, i’m in.
gnome de blog
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

#273: You think Gloucestershire is bad? How about Chalmondersley? ‘Chumley’ if you say it.

275, 287: It’s Natch-i-TOCH-es, Louisiana. However, its sister city in Texas (about 120 miles away) is NACK-uh-tish. Spelled ‘Nacogdoches.’

I think they spell it that way because they were trying to approximate French attempts to pronounce the name of the local Indian tribe, also spelled Natchitoches. The Texas variant may derive from Spanish or English attempts to do the same thing.

I live in ORygun (thanks, Paperback Rifler, for gettting it right). But my wife was born in Louisiana and grew up in Texas. She knows.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm [Reply]

Spoh-CAN.
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm [Reply]

I must confess that most of my life I have pronounced “nuclear” as “nook-yoo-ler”. It never even occurred to me that this was wrong until all my liberal urban east coast elitist friends started making fun of the president for saying it that way. Peer pressure has caused me to switch up, but if I’m not thinking I still say it in the George W. Bush fashion.

Josh
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:07 pm [Reply]

328: Thanks for keepin’ it real, Andrea.
Lynngineering
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:09 pm [Reply]

Ok – I really have to contribute something before this thread ends. So: First of all, Josh, is that Oxford you’re using saying that the U.S. is a country comprised of 20 states. If so, you should update soon.
With all my bad punctuation and grammar issues, I am timid but will add just one phrase onto the pyre, which is “pushing the envelope”. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. I won’t even begin to do the breakdown of what it originally started life as, but suffice to say, what now sounds like the most mundane paper-pushing Dilbert taskwork, started life as a larger phrase linked to limits of the atmosphere, the envelope as it were, and going beyond those limits. It is sort of telling isn’t it, that right stuff is reduced to bureaucracy of pushing envelopes.
Trotzenbonnie
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:15 pm [Reply]

#331 – Lynngineering
Chuck Yeager says, “Tru dat!”
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm [Reply]

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/new_sitcom_pulls_back_the
Josh
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:18 pm [Reply]

#331 Lynngineering — Hey now, there are other countries with states, you know! Let’s not be USAcentric. It’s just talking about some … other … unnamed country. With, you know, 20 states. (Actually, Fowler’s English Usage — writte by Brits — uses the USA and 50 states in its example.)

Anyhoo, I too loathe “pushing the envelope” with a white-hot passion. There’s some new phrase I just heard that means “pushing the envelope but even more so”, which my brain refuses to summon up, which is probably for the best — “exploding the envelope?” Something like that. It’s like my other least favorite business business buzzphrase pair: “cutting-edge”, and, when you need to be even cutting-edgier, “bleeding edge”. Yuck yuck YUCK.

Josh
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm [Reply]

fizzy (323) – Jeff Renner needs an ass-kickin’. Or maybe just someone to take away the man-tan. Steve Poole is ALWAYS signing books at Costco. Feel free to take him out.

Yeah, Ballard’s a bitch on a good day. And this HAS been a totally lame-ass summer. Good thing we tend to have Indian summers here, or I’d move away.

secretmargo (297ish?) Oooh, I had the SAME problem with academic writing. It’s why I became a technical writer. I was so thrilled to write a paragraph without having to use the words historonic or exegetical.
Sister Sestina
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm [Reply]

#298 I Pity the Foob – Wanna join the Apostrophe Posse? Carry a roll of tape and mask out unneeded apostrophes in signs!
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:25 pm [Reply]

334: I just thought you were displaying the symptoms of a rare form of dyslexia whereby the sufferer turns numbers and letters upside-down instead of reversing their order.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

And since I made up “historonic”, it’s a good thing I never use it anymore.

Oh, and Josh – nookyooler is OK. A lot of us say it, and there’s a valid reason for it, based on dialect.

Here’s a question for ‘mudgeons around the country – do you pronouce the ‘h’ in ‘history’? Because I’ve noticed that most broadcasters will say “an historic event”, which sounds strange to me, but apparently is very standard.
Sister Sestina
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm [Reply]

And on another punctuational note — I’ve a friend who told me she always wanted to write a paper called “High Colonics: The Use of the Colon in Titles of Academic Papers.”
Jamus The Bartender
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm [Reply]

Thank you Mountain Mama and Divine Ms. O’F
Everyone sit up and stop chewing gum and pay attention, for it’s

The Gospel Of Josh, According To Jamus
Chapter Four, Book Of Curmudgeonites
And it came to pass that Josh and the other Curmudgeonites did decide to take their starship the Tarzana Nights to deepest darkest
Africa…not the Africa of today with it’s civil strife and various countries fighting each other, but a nice Africa with Tarzan swinging on vines and talking to apes and such. Like on Disney. But with guns.
During the journey, Josh and many of the other disciples did discuss the pronunciations of certain words and phrases for three whole freaking hours. This left Jamus listless, so he perused his polaroids of Cassandra the Cat, naked , with the wax of candles dripping down certain of her bodily naughty bits. Jamus did sigh and wonder where it all went wrong. Divine O’F said that it was when she sold his worldly possesions for drugs and Mountain Mama said he should get a grip and move on with his life, and that there were other eight-breasted cat-women out there. Jamus decided they were right and proceeded to make sure the liquor cabinet was well stocked.
In time, the ship did land in the region of Bangalla. Or is that Banghalla? I get those two confused. I’m gonna go with Banghalla.
Having recievedeth word of the landing of Josh and his disciples, the Holy Ghost Who Walks Among Us In Striped Briefs did order a fatted calf slain and also lots of delectable jungle goodies that Rachael Ray couldn’t hold a candle to. The Banghallans prepared a marvelous party for their king, the Phantom.
After eating and drinking much and having a really nice time and Spider Brick almost getting bit by the Dog Of The Ghost Who Walks, Devil, and Jamus asking if he could ride the Horse Of The Ghost Who Walks, and maybe shoot off his pistols, all for the entertainment of these two nine-foot tall amazon women who were almost as strong as Wonder Woman, only much more open-minded, Josh did say unto Mr. Walker, “Blessed are you, Ghost Who Walks, for, even though your storylines are often antiquated and borderline racist what with the whole “white man conquering the jungle ” thing, you are an icon not only of the comic strip, but of fictional literature as well. Even though you only seem to be able to ride a horse, shoot guns, and are easily able to pull the wool over the eyes of dumb white guys looking for ivory, you provided the template for which other characters would follow. Characters such as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Flash, Green Lantern and the X-Men owe you a debt of gratitude. Even that dumb Speedball from Marvel Comics who was badly named. Like Doc Savage, the Shadow, and Tarzan, for whom our ship is sort-of named, you are a trailblazer. Blessed be unto you.”
In thanks, the Phantom did bless Josh and the Curmudgeonites with the protection of the Phantom, by pressing his ring finger against our cheeks. Jamus was afraid he was hitting on him until he saw the letter P on his chin. Now let those bill-collectors come.
Here endeth the lesson.
AhClem
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:31 pm [Reply]

Being originally from Michigan, one of my peeves was the mispronunciation of Mackinac (as in the bridge, strait and city). It’s pronounced mack-i-naw, not mack-i-nack.

I also get annoyed at people who don’t know how to use apostrophe’s.
Sister Sestina
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:33 pm [Reply]

Historically, “an historic event” is correct — past authors used “an” in front of more h-words than we would find comfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable indefinite articles, I get queasy when I have to type “A AAA service…” because our style book says you have to proceed on the assumption that the acronym will be pronounced “Triple A.” Still looks amazingly silly.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm [Reply]

That makes sense. You would have to write ‘an RN’, too.

LOL on the High Colonics, by the way. Really. A bit of Talking Rain Sparkling Water (peach and nectarine flavored) went up my nose.
SecretMargo
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm [Reply]

339: As a MAJOR colon abuser myself (just ask my boyfriend! *rimshot), I am hardly one to talk, but on the rare occasion I read an article title that contents itself to just be a title sans-sub-, it’s as refreshing as a … well, as a high colonic, actually.
MonkeyHawk
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:38 pm [Reply]

#341 — Dave Barry, as “Mr. Grammar Person,” caught all kinds of hell from English teachers when he declared. “The apostrophe is the universal symbol indicating that the next letter is an ’s.’”
blueberry
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm [Reply]

#325, Andrea D: well said!

My graduate work in linguistics taught me this: most people who have gone through the educational system develop strongly held beliefs, aka pet peeves, about what is “correct” in written language. The longer they spend in school, the more strongly held the beliefs become: B.A. = annoying, M.A. = obnoxious, PhD. = belligerent. Note that it’s the belligerent ones who are doing the teaching.

The thing is, we may each have different ideas of what is “correct,” based on when we were taught, where we were taught, by whom, using which stylebook or dictionary as a guide.

I suspect that pet language peeves are rooted in some very emotional experience, such being embarrassed in front of class by a teacher, or having a PhD adviser refuse to sign a dissertation until all the serial commas are removed, and then having the dean refuse to sign until they are replaced (true story).

In conclusion: CCers seem to be a very well-educated lot!

P.S. My current pet peeve is “going forward” to mean “from now on.” As if we could go backward!
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm [Reply]

Dave Barry also wrote something along the following lines:

Apostrophes should be used to indicate contractions, as in “This childbirth really hurt’s.”
Brown-eyed Girl
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:46 pm [Reply]

340. Jamus. Mind if I join you over there at the bar?
dale
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:51 pm [Reply]

Family (XX) – I don’t know how old that rerun is, but when I was the age of the little monsters in the car, a family vacation without at least one tire failure was unheard of. The first blowout I remember as a child was also a right rear, but in a ‘38 Packard.
Spiny Norman
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:53 pm [Reply]

#325: Not to get too technical (OK, it’s going to be too technical), but it’s entirely appropriate to end a sentence with a preposition if the preposition is part of a “phrasal verb”–e.g., “All this talk about grammar will eventually make the less tolerant Mudges throw up.” “Throw up” is 2 words, 1 verb. And a lot of the time when prepositions are hanging out there at the ends of things, it’s because they work two jobs: preposition by day, adverb by night.

I start sentences with conjunctions all the time, which I’m sure drives somebody nuts. (see first paragraph)

“They” as a third-person singular pronoun makes perfect sense, too, but only because we don’t have a gender-neutral word that performs that function. Coining new words or borrowing them from other languages always makes sense if there’s a functional gap. For the same reason, “y’all” ought to be perfectly legal.
The Divine O’F
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

318 Uncle Lumpy: A crank-off it is! And for my second I choose my eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Leddy (if she is still alive. Even if she isn’t, I’m sure she could roll over in her grave vigorously enough to do in anyone who uses parsec as a unit of time).

329 Josh. You have broken my heart.

340 Jamus: You have restored my LOVE LOVE LOVE for all things Curmudgeon. And BTW, the first two books in the Tarzan series form one of the great all-time classic fantasy novels.

I hate to check out of this lively discussion, and miss the Turning of the Thread (unless I cause it just now), but I gotta go for the day. Snark well, and I’ll see y’all tomorrow.
Andrea D and The Grandstanding Oddballs
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

Yes, going forward! God, I hate that one. I remember when it was first entering common usage, and I was so puzzled by it. I swear that it was used every ten seconds by one marketing schmuck or another.

So, I really enjoy reading John McWhorter, who is a layman’s linguist at UC Berkeley (or was… don’t know if he’s still there). He writes for people who have trouble decipering Chompsky. My favorite book of his is “Word on the Street”. I’m sure that there is much wrong with it, but it makes a good case for not being a total grammar snob and probably formed much of my opinion about language and dialectology.

I was reading a review of another book by McWhorter, called Doing Our Own Thing. And yes, there’s a colon and a subtitle to that.

Anyway, so toward the end of the review, Jonathan Yardley says the following:

McWhorter himself certainly seems happy to abjure formality in his own prose. He obviously is a very smart guy, but a lot of the time he writes like a dumb one. Over and over again he begins sentences and/or paragraphs with “And . . . ,” mostly in usages where “And . . . ” is unnecessary and unjustified: “And for that reason . . . ,” “And it’s true that . . . ” He has an exceedingly dim understanding of the singular and plural: “the student . . . has a three-by-five card in their hand,” “the person would hardly find themselves,” “the young person who tries their hand,” “nuances of vocabulary is one thing, but . . . ” Sometimes he commits unforgivable howlers: ” . . . she felt more linguistically corsetted than him,” “in today’s America, it would be quizzical.” Sometimes you just have to pause and take a deep breath before trying to figure out what on earth he’s trying to say: “W.E.B. Du Bois dwelled casually in terms quite similar to Bernstein’s, and often more nakedly judgmental.”

WHAT A PRISS.

So I just wrote him an email a few hours ago and asked: While I haven’t read the book yet, I was baffled by your review. I understand you subscribe to a rather prim school of grammatical rules, but let me ask: If someone were to say to you “The student held a three-by-five card in their hand”, would you really be baffled? Would the meaning not be clear to you?

And this is his response: I would say that person was illiterate.

Mind you, I managed to get the title of the book wrong (Do Your Own Thing rather than Doing Our Own Thing), so maybe that was aimed at me.
Jamus The Bartender
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 pm [Reply]

348. Absolutely Brown-Eyes…absolutely.
blueberry
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:09 pm [Reply]

Andrea, I agree, what a priss! I haven’t read McWhorter, but I already love him, just on the basis of this review.

And, I’ve never understood why people find the “singular they” more offensive than the “genderless he.” I’ve heard of a study in which researchers recorded the spoken language of academicians and found that the subjects used singular they in conversation without a problem, even though they marked it wrong, wrong wrong in written language.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:11 pm [Reply]

The thread is dead, but some of you may appreciate this defence of the singular “they”.
Tabby
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm [Reply]

Can’t stay long, and waaay behind on the thread, but shouts to all the GA mudges! I’m close to Savannah & Statesboro. Who knew there were so many Georgians?
Uncle Lumpy
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:16 pm [Reply]

McWhorter’s Power of Babel is a treat.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm [Reply]

SecretMargo @ 297: I can’t say I’ve even heard of “historicity” before. Sounds like something a city promoter would come up with as a tourism slogan. “St. Augustine… It’s a historicity!” I have a hard enough time with people who use “historic” when they mean “historical” and vice-versa. Historic means the thing in question has an intrinsic significance in history. Historical describes something that relates to the study, preservation or exhibition of historic items, places and events. A Civil War battlefield is historic; the tour of it is historical. The old part of downtown is historic; the group that preserves it is the Historical Society. The original draft of the Constitution is historic; you can see it in the Historical Museum.

And I don’t care how great or important the network says it is, under no circumstances is a brand-new TV event historic. If it’s new, it’s by definition not historic. Though a Ken Burns documentary could certainly be historical.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:37 pm [Reply]

Ooh, ooh! Got another peeve! False ranges.

That’s where someone says “From xxxxx to yyyyy” when those two items do not mark the opposite endpoints of a defined range. For example, “The store sells everything from Bobby Gentry CDs to bobbypins.” What’s included in that range? Would you find Spam in there? How about carburetors? Stationery? Live goldfish? Or how about bobby socks? Somehow I doubt the writer intended to imply that only things starting with “bobby” are sold there, so the question stands. If you can’t tell what’s in the range and what isn’t, it’s a false range and should not be included, because it doesn’t actually tell you anything. If you just want to list representative items, then do that.

And don’t even get me started on false ranges with three or more items: “I like everything from pop to New Age to jazz.” So you’re telling me your continuum of musical tastes occupy a three-dimensional space? Grrr.

Yeah, I know the thread’s dead, but I see no need to inflict my linguistic peeves on the next thread too.
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:51 pm [Reply]

I like anything in the convex hull of pop, new age, and jazz.
GetFuzzyFan
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm [Reply]

Well, I had to delurk at this point (after months of just reading and enjoying) because I never before realized I was so close to Curmudgeon royalty. I live in the greater Roopville metropolitan area myself– I was amazed when I saw that pic of the city hall– pick up my mail at the Roopville post office every day. Not only that, I teach at UWG. This discussion has been extremely entertaining. Wait until I tell my neighbors (who are all cows, literally) that our little burg is an internet sensation.
Cerebus the Earth-pig
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:27 pm [Reply]

It’s spelled “Raymond Luxury-Yacht” but it’s pronounced “Throat-Warbler Mangrove”
Dr. Mabuse
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm [Reply]

#322 – I remember when there was a vogue for saying “New-FOUND-land” – back in the 70s, I think. I still pronounce it “NEW-fnd-lnd”; Is “NewfoundLAND” the way it’s pronounced in the Maritimes? The only time I hear it pronounced with the accent on the final syllable is on the CBC, and you can’t trust what they say. I used to watch CSI:Miami on Thursday nights, and the announcer would finish the commercial for every upcoming show with, “Here on CT…..V” and now I figure that media types just like playing around with language stresses to sound important.
Eh, Readers? [still formerly Kip W]
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm [Reply]

Paperback Rifler @273 – The element was first named “Alumunium,” then soon after was changed to “Aluminum,” and then the US and UK split on the issue, and it’s kept these two great nations from understanding each other ever since. Pity.

The Divine O’F @311 – Just remember: If you “lie” on the beach, you get a nice tan. If you “lay” on the beach, you get a funny tan.

Andrea D et al @338 – National Lampoon cartoon, circa 1981 shows a sign on a chain-link fence: “Nobody who says ‘Nucular’ permitted beyond this point.”
Rob
August 11th, 2007 at 2:15 pm [Reply]

Peoria is in Illinois, and its rather large.
nemoErensenuT
February 9th, 2008 at 7:54 pm [Reply]

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

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