Ask AZ: there there

From a science reporter yesterday, a query about where the expression there there came from. My answer came in two parts, one having to do with the comforting or reassuring there, there, the other with Gertrude Stein and Oakland (because my correspondent specifically mentioned them).

face compounds

Today’s Zippy:

Mainly about Facebook and face time, but there’s other stuff in there too.

Dinosaur Grammar

In a comment by The Ridger on my “sneak peak” posting, a link to this excellent Dinosaur Comic:

Three things: case-marking with than; the dangers of correcting people’s grammar (this is why The Ridger linked to the cartoon — for Utahraptor’s criticism and T-Rex’s response); and the mixed clichés (“out of the box” and “push the envelope”).

Wienerfest

From Karen Erickson on Facebook, Ride the Wild Wiener:

There’s no text in the speech balloon, so you can feel free to invent some (as people on Facebook are doing).

When hell freezes over

A Bizarro with unlikely language changes:

We all have our peeves and pleasures. Apparently, the Devil appreciates awesome and That being said.

Clichéfest

Today’s Zippy, with a wave of mangled clichés:

I got “Fat chance”, “There’s strength in numbers”, “One good turn deserves another”, and “I’m on pins and needles”, plus “the wisdom of crowds” in the title, but I was momentarily stumped on lick Pawtucket (“kick the bucket”). The line between clichés and idioms is none too clear here.

(And note: “Scuffle, muffle, duffel, trick!”)

Conger on!

Bodies politic

Two days ago I posted on parasites and the body politic — well, on a family of expressions linking the two, of which parasites on/upon/in the body politic are central examples. My assumption was that these expressions were in fact instances of a formula, now quite common — and, indeed, common in certain contexts since (as it turns out) at least the late 19th century (see the comments on the earlier postings).

Attempting to track things back earlier than this (as Michael Palmer has been so valiantly doing) leads to a set of examples in which the idiom body politic is involved in medical metaphors. This is parallel to the situation with other formulaic expressions (clichés and snowclones, in particular), where research on their history takes us back to the circumstances that gave rise to the formulas — that is, to times before the expressions were fixed in form.

But first, notes on body politic itself.

Dating by cliché

Today’s Bizarro:

Dan Piraro has chosen to have all four clichés attributed to both parties in the event. Maybe we’re supposed to see the exchange as alternating between the man and the woman, or maybe we can mix and match.

[Bonus observation: the synthetic compound speed-dating (however punctuated) has of course given rise to a two-part back-formed verb speed-date. Lots of hits for to speed-date and speed-dated, both intransitive and transitive.]