Edmonton - Alberta Meteor 1

WTF Kermit?

Warning--not safe for the kiddies, especially the part where he services Fozzy Bear.

Ladies, hide your bicycles!

You might want to keep it inside.

A 36-year old man from Östersund has been accused of sexual molestation after he slit tires on women's bicycles and then ejaculated and soiled the seats. He "molested" one woman three times.

Östersund's district court is charging the man with sexual molestation because he chose bicycles that he saw women riding to vandalize. The crimes are therefore, according to the court, targeted at women and not just bicycles.

The man has been given a conditional sentence and ordered to pay fines as well as reimburse the women for the damage to their bicycles.

Gnome way!

WTF Typo

From the Bella Vista Town Watch eNews of Bella Vista:

3/15, 9:09 p.m. - 9XX Carpenter, complainant states that he was sitting in can when an attempt was made to snatch his cell phone leading to a beating and slashing of all four tires.

WTF Antecedent

From a Citgo ad:

For generations we've been helping to fuel our way of life

I know what its supposed to say; 'we' is meant to refer to Citgo and 'our' to society. But it hurts my brain to get that reading. Instead I want them both to refer to Citgo.

I absolutely couldn't fail to disagree more

Young Eric tries to measure up in academic-speak and gets all tied up in postive, negative knots.

It’s certainly not unimpressive that Alex had apparently learned to associate the quoted string of words above with being put back in his cage for the night.

To the bat phone!

That grainy picture is a bat on an alcove wall of the Ciarco Learning Center in Hackensack, NJ. I took it last night at around 8:00 with my cell phone. Just the night before I had nightmare about a bat attacking me.

But I don't respect the clergy!

I think I'm going to be sick

Holger Danske, a Danish nationalist myth, has been adopted by nutcases who think we're headed for Armageddon.

As I’ve said before, it’s not race that’s the issue here, it’s culture. The culture of the Danes, the Norsemen, the English, and the Celts. The culture of the hardy and self-reliant Men of the North, always ready to defend their ancient liberties with a ferocity that their enemies can scarcely imagine. The culture of productive enterprise and armed self-determination that has spread to all corners of the globe.

Holger Danske is the man who best represents us. He’ll be there in the hour of our greatest need.

Holger is not just the avatar of the Danes, or even of the Men of the North. He stands for the West. He is the defender of what we hold dear, of what we have all but forgotten how to fight for.

WTF Barney

Overheard while kid was watching Barney (oh don't give me that fucking, "my kid doesn't watch Barney" crap). In this episode, Barney and his minions are playing with kites. Barney's kite is purple with green spots on it, just like him.

Barney's minion: Hey Barney, do you know how I can tell which kite is yours?
Barney: No, how?
Barney's minion: Because it has spots on it like yours!

WTF Comparative

I’ve got two versions of Jimmie Rodgers’ 1928 chart topper Blue Yodel (T for Tennessee) on my iPod. One version is from Johnny Cash and one is from the Everly Brothers. The Everly Brothers’ version was released in 1969 as a single and the Johnny Cash version is from his posthumous Unearthed box set. And both have the same line that makes me go "wtf?":

I’m gonna buy me a pistol just as long as I’m tall.

Both Johnny and the Everly Brothers sing it with emphasis on long and not on the I’m. As far as I can tell this line isn’t in the original. Any hint on where it came from would be welcome.

The most salient reading I get for this line is one where the clause just as long as I’m tall is interpreted as a sentential modifier something along the lines of: As long as I continue to be tall tall, I’m going to buy a pistol. However, I’m pretty sure the intended meaning is as a relative clause modifying the pistol: I’m gonna buy a pistol that is as long as I am tall. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I can’t get the intended meaning.

There is a lot of stuff going on in this sentence. For one thing, there is the nonstandard reflexive buy me. But more important is the relative clause just as long as I’m tall. It is missing the verb be. And it doesn’t have a relative pronoun when the gap is the subject of the clause. So it’s like, There’s a pistol is as long as I am tall. This type of relative clause is ungrammatical in Standard English. However, some dialects allow it.

In Scots, as in other non-standard varieties, the relative pronoun is optionallydeleted when it is the subject of its clause:

an it rubbed aa the rat ower wi its fingers – or its paws – wi this stuff was in the bottle ("The three dogs", op. cit., p.234)

And I don’t usually find relative clauses like this that bad. Still, even if we fix those things up, I have a hard time accepting the sentence:

I’m going to buy a pistol that is just as long as I’m tall.

This fact leads me to believe that the comparative is also a problem (for me anyway). And that I can’t figure. Try these two sentences with just the comparative:

The pistol is just as long as I’m tall.
The pistol is just as long as I am tall.

The second one sounds much better to me—though I have to admit I’ve been thinking about these for a while so my brain could be fried.

linguistics
syntax
dialect

Ad syntax

Continuing the ad theme here. There's an airline ad I walked by this morning in the 33rd street PATH station that gave me a momentary pause.

The copy read (with approximation to font sizes and line breaks):

We know

How you fly

to LA is as important as when you fly.

This one sent me down the garden path. My first reaction was "They know how I fly, ok." Then I got to the "to LA..." part and was like, "huh?" Had to do some retracing of my steps there.

Clearly there is a need for linguistically-trained professionals in the advertising field. I think I'll go ask for a raise.