Present Archive

Eggcorns, Mondegreens and Charactonyms

By Dan Zambonini, July 14, 2010, 3:32 pm in Language, Present

I like discovering linguistic terms for things that I thought were too trivial to be given an official name.

Eggcorns

An Eggcorn is a special case of a malapropism: a mistaken phrase that retains some of the original meaning. For example, where a malapropism might be the nonsensical, “He is the very pineapple [pinnacle] of politeness“, an eggcorn might be, ”Chickens coming home to roast“.

The term derives from a woman who thought acorns were egg corns.

Mondegreens

A Mondegreen is a mis-construal of a phrase in a song, poem or lyric. The most famous of these is the Jimi Hendrix line, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky“, which is often misheard as, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy“. However, some argue that this particular example is not really a mishearing, as Jimi may have purposefully sung the line to be interpreted both ways.

The Kiss This Guy database has an excellent collection of mondegreens, including the awesome, “Might as well face it, you’re a d**k with a glove” – Addicted to Love, by Robert Palmer.

The term derives from a misheard line in a poem, that was originally, “And laid him on the green“.

(Thanks to Francesco Cetraro for pointing me to the video above, which has some wonderful mondegreens, including “Steven Seagal”, which is always funny, in any context.)

Charactonyms / Aptronyms

An Aptronym is a person’s name that suits them, such as the American football player Chuck Long. Similarly, a Charactonym is the name of a fictional character that describes their personality, such as Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist, or many of the adult character names from Harry Potter.

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Competitive Eating and the Fourth of July

By Amy Thibodeau, July 5, 2010, 12:19 am in Culture, Present

“We are thrilled to offer this spirited event on America’s most patriotic day,” said Wayne Norbitz, president and CEO of Nathan’s Famous [hotdogs], Coney Island competition sponsor.

Food competitions are a big deal in America. Today at the annual Coney Island hotdog eating competition, high jinx ensued as previous champion Takeru Kobayashi was arrested after taking the stage in protest after Joey “Jaws” Chestnut was awarded the top prize. Kobayashi wasn’t allowed to compete because he refused to sign an exclusivity contract with Major League Eating, the organisation responsible for the event. With all this brouhaha, we thought we’d do some hard hitting journalism and give you some facts about eating for sport:

  • In today’s competition Chestnut became ‘top dog’ after eating 54 hotdogs in just under ten minutes. According to most sources an average hotdog contains about 110 calories and a bun somewhere around 105. Assuming there are no condiments involved, that’s approximately 215 calories per dog, meaning Chestnut ingested a whopping 11,610 calories in ten minutes, 1161 calories per minute and 19.35 calories per second. It would take someone weighing 150 pounds over ten hours straight of running at 10 mph to burn his total calorie intake. (source)
  • According to their website, Major League Eating holds around 80 events per year and the ESPN broadcast of their fourth of July Hotdog competition has generated more viewers than any Major League Baseball telecast on the same day in the US. Their website also has a page featuring world records in eating where people have ingested mass quantities of an impressive list the includes slurpees, vienna sausages, asparagus, beef tongue, butter, cabbage, clams, cow brains, gyoza, haggis, bannock and yes, spam.
  • Competitive eating is more popular in Japan and the USA than any other countries.
  • There is apparently some bad blood between Major Eating League and the other organisation that officially represents competitive eaters, the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters. According to Wikipedia, the AICE was “established by competitive eater Arnie “Chowhound” Chapman, also sanctions contests. Chapman was a former IFOCE member who defected to form an independent league after disputes over IFOCE contractual restrictions.” AICE members also refer to themselves as ‘food warriors’.
  • ‘Chipmunking’ is the practice of shoving a bunch of food in your mouth during a competition but not swallowing it. Generally this isn’t cool. People who do this are usually given a specified amount of time to swallow the food in their mouth once the competition is over and if they can’t then they’re disqualified. Vomiting is also not allowed and competitors are asked to maintain a fairly rubbish free eating area.
  • Competitive eating can actually be a dangerous sport with side effects including: a bleeding overstretched stomach, ulcers, water intoxication and stomach paralysis.

In a 2007 piece for the Huffington Post, actor Ryan Reynolds summed up competitive eating aptly: “we are ALL bound together by the vibrant spirit of competition and grotesque displays of boundless, unapologetic shitheadery.”

Happy Independence day America!

Image Credit: Hot Dog by benjibot

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Change Blindness, Saccadic Masking: Eye Hacks – Oh My!

By Dan Zambonini, June 30, 2010, 5:39 pm in Physiology, Present, Psychology

In the above video, 75% of the people tested failed to notice that the person they were talking to was swapped with a different person during their conversation. In a similar experiment conducted by Derren Brown, about 50% of people failed to notice that a person asking them for directions was swapped-out during their interaction. This phenomenon is referred to as Change Blindess or Inattentional Blindness – our inability to detect large changes in a scene.

We also experience some form of ‘blindness’ on a very small scale. Our brain performs something called Saccadic Masking during certain types of fast eye movements (saccades), where our vision is massively impaired during the movement, but our brain uses before and after snapshots to hide the fact that we were unable to clearly see during the movement – in effect, it is hiding the useless blurred image of movement from us.

You can see this in action with a simple experiment. Grab a friend and a mirror. Look into the mirror, and stare at one eye, then switch to the other, then back again. You won’t be able to see your eye movement (your brain is masking it), but your friend will.

For more information, check out Hack #17, Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision (pdf) from O’Reilly’s excellent Mind Hacks book.

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Round-Up: Five Great Online Comic Strips

By Amy Thibodeau, June 23, 2010, 10:32 pm in Art, Present

In no particular order:

Dakota McFadzean: Tries to create a new comic each day, usually published on his site once a week. Funny, sad and a bit nostalgic, McFadzean’s best work is like Peanuts for a new generation. Notable strips: Post Apocalyptic Puppy and anything featuring Dakota himself.

A Softer World: Written and photographed by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau, it’s a unique take on the genre using photos instead of illustrations. Offering a social commentary on the most mundane of experiences, it is sad, weird and often laugh-out-loud funny.


XKCD: Simple drawings, complex ideas; “a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.” The guy who writes and illustrates these self-describes as a graduate with a degree in physics whose previous experience includes working on robots at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. This strip was nominated by Dan Zambonini.

Beatonna: Excellent collection of mainly historically-based comics with a particular interest in the crazy Victorians. Written by Kate Beaton (whose personal website seems to be down at the moment) and nominated by Dave Joyner.


Garfield Minus Garfield: Nothing else to say really.

Honourable mentions go to Concerned (nominated by Jim O’Donnell) and User Friendly (nominated by John Greenaway – sorry I just didn’t get it!).

Do you have favourite online comics? Please share in the comments.

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Imaginary Places: Neil Young’s Greendale

By Amy Thibodeau, June 16, 2010, 8:59 pm in Books, Film, Music, Present

A few months ago, we wrote about John Hughes and the fictional town of Shermer, Illinois, which crops up in almost all of his films. This ongoing fictional relationship an artist has with an imaginary place or set of people is uncommon but, apart from Hughes there are some other great examples: Salinger and the Glass family, the Brontes and fictional world of Angria and Neil Young’s Greendale, has recently been turned into a graphic novel.

Greendale is the name of the last album Young released with Crazy Horse. The ten tracks tell the story of the small California town and some of the people who live there. There is also an accompanying short film about the place, which Young made using an old super eight camera, and a spoken word audio recording about the various characters:

This is a story about a little town called Greendale and a family that lives there – actually, they live outside of town. The Green family lives at the Double E Rancho about two miles outside of Greendale. The Double E is the home of Sun Green, an 18-year-old girl who goes to school in Greendale, and she’s a cheerleader. And she’s a good student. And her mom and dad, Earl Green and Edith Green. Earl Green is a Vietnam vet. (Voice in audience: Why?) I don’t know why, actually. It’s a question that’s been haunting everybody for ages. There wouldn’t be any vets without war, so I guess we have to go back to war. Like most vets, he wanders around trying to forget what he knows. And he’s a painter. He paints psychedelic paintings and he tries to sell them at the galleries around town and in the area, without much luck. He hardly ever sells a painting. (source)

This week Vertigo, a division of DC Comics, released a graphic novel called Neil Young’s Greendale, which “focuses on Sun Green, the great-granddaughter of Jay Green, the man who founded Greendale. Through Sun, the artists tell a story about personal responsibility, war and the environment.” (source) Young, who was a collaborator on the graphic novel doesn’t think this will be last fans see of Greendale, “There are all kinds of things that we talked about doing that aren’t in this book, that have to do with her next episode and her story. These characters have been designed to last a long time.” (source)

Image Credit: Neil Young’s Greendale Graphic Novel Cover, Young Family Trust and DC Comics

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