Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Narcoleptic Dauchshund
Dodgers, LL and I recently viewed a documentary about dog breeding. One problem with selective breeding is that otherwise perfect dogs can end up with bizzare diseases, such as narcolepsy. We were dumbfounded to watch a dauchshund, not unlike this one, who fell asleep while trotting down a corridor. It was simultaneously tragic and freaking hilarious. What do you think? Is canine narcolepsy funny or sad?
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Implicaure 2

AMS pointed out that what we get out of a humorous sample is subjective. What is the implicature in this photo? I can think of several that explain the humor, my favorite being that the bear fell because he couldn't read the sign. Ah, if only our schools were funded better, we could focus on such social necesities as bear literacy.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Implicatures

I am/was a Linguistics student, and when we talk about implicatures, we talk about what a certain utterance implies. For example, the statement "Mary lost the love of her life" implies that she had previously had him, that she's probably sad about it, that she loved him more than any other person, etc. The abouve picture is heavy in implicatues. What can we deduce from it, and why are the implicatures funny?





