Today’s Bizarro, with more puns:
The second pun turns on word division (compare ice cream vs. I scream), with the extra twist that the indefinite article a(n) is usually attached to the following word and pronounced as a unit with it — so than the [n] of an is usually syllabified with the following word, making an ice and a nice phonetically identical.
The third plays on the convention of using obscenicons to represent swearwords.
Of course, all three depend on cultural knowledge: among other things, that Brussels is in Belgium, that Brussels sprouts are a vegetable, that the man in the first panel is planting something, and that the scene and his costume suggest Belgium (what makes it preposterous is that he’s planting pig snouts); that the costumes and dwellings in the second panel are appropriate for Eskimos and that Eskimos live in cold, snowy climates; and that Men’s Wearhouse (itself a pun) is the name of a men’s clothing store.
February 19, 2012 at 11:30 am |
Arnold, I think the Belgian farmer is harvesting a whole pig that has apparently grown underground and that we do not know what he planted to get such a crop. I think the snouts are only the shoots or the plant-part of beet or turnip like plants.
Dennis (not that such nit-picking, or pork-picking, should spoil the humor)
February 19, 2012 at 3:01 pm |
My own nit-picking: there are no snouts in front of the farmer, suggesting that he’s planting the porkers, not harvesting them.
February 19, 2012 at 5:43 pm |
It ooks to me like the farmer is reaping.
Also, is Eskimo insensitive now? (Not calling you out; just curious language-wise.)
February 19, 2012 at 8:25 pm |
If he’s reaping, why are there no snouts in front of him?
On the Eskimo question, there really is no other term that will fit with readers’ experiences, and even scholars use it in many contexts (West Greenlandic Eskimo, Eskimology, Eskimo languages, etc.). Inuit is unacceptable in many contexts, where it’s seen as not including the Yupik and Inupiat (not to mention the Aleut). There’s no good solution to the problem, especially if you’re talking to non-specialist audiences.