stormicide's butt

for my birthday, i received the "Collector's Edition" of The Incredibles from my sister, but didn't actually get it until this last weekend (about a month after my bd). if you haven't seen it, the animated film is awesome and very entertaining. the "Collector's Edition" comes with a second dvd with many deleted scenes, outtakes, interviews, etc. one of the features is an NSA vault that tells more about the different Supers "in their own words."

listening to the Stormicide (a female superhero) audio, she talks of her ability to "absorb and emit vapors of various properties", mentioning how she is many times the "butt of jokes" when she is described as "making gas". at first, i wasn't sure if she said butt or bud, but immediately following that, she comments (with laughter in the background) on how she says "butt" and "gas" in the same context. i did a quick search on google with "bud of jokes" and only got a count of 35; when i searched with "butt of jokes", i got a count of 34,300.

my question is, which is the eggcorn? bud of jokes seems to make sense: bud in the sense of producing, so the object which produces jokes is a bud of jokes. however, google (supposedly representing most people) seem to disagree. butt of jokes makes sense in terms of being the bottom or root of jokes. i looked at The Eggcorn Database and noticed the bud >> butt, but only to "nip in the bud/butt". this made me think even moreso that the original is bud, not butt;. I also a have "Longman's Dictionary of English Idioms", printed in the 1970's, but it doesn't mention either "butt of jokes" or "bud of jokes". does anyone else have a better understanding or more information about which is the eggcorn?

[Update: so I was talking with Kirk Boydston about this, and he thinks the eggcorn is "bud of all jokes" since intervocalic /t/ becomes a flap. He also suggested that "butt" as in "objective end" of all jokes. Apparently, I should have checked dictionary.com, since when I looked up "butt", the first definition of the third sense of the word is: One that serves as an object of ridicule or contempt: I was the butt of their jokes. Well, at least it looks like there is an eggcorn (since I got a count on Google) floating around that I need to mention over at The Eggcorn Database.]

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old ladies rock: another funny google video

sick of those ill-mannered, self-centered career types? this old lady throws down the gauntlet. old lady++ (thanks for the link Camie!)

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Triaminic?

being sick is no fun, especially when you don't take care of yourself. when i was at Wal-Mart yesterday with Margret, she was thinking about getting some cold medicine. some of her friends (including me) have come down with a cold, and since she doesn't take care of herself, she thought it best to get some medicine in case she gets any of the symptoms. anyway, my mom is big on two drugs for a cold or flu, Triaminic and TheraFlu, so i suggested Triaminic to Margret. when i looked at the Triaminic boxed container, i decided to read about it (since i don't use it myself). on one side of the box, it had the following text (with graphics to make it more appealing):

Triaminic

What You Need to Make Your Child Feel Better.

Cold & Allergy Itchy, Watery Eyes Runny, Stuffy Nose Sneezing Itchy Throat Great Taste

Triaminic provides a broad range of formulas, in forms created with the needs of children in mind.

Trusted by Parents, Pediatricians & Pharmacists for over 40 years.

1. *a cold or allergy will/might produce these
2. *a cold or allergy will/might not produce these
3. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic will/might give you these
4. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic will/might not give you these
5. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic will/might remove these from you
6. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic will/might not remove these from you
7. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic gave these to a person who used it
8. *Cold & Allergy Triaminic did not give these to a person who used it

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is this really a surprise?

You are 'Latin'. Even among obsolete skills, the tongue of the ancient Romans is a real anachronism. With its profusion of different cases and conjugations, Latin is more than a language; it is a whole different way of thinking about things.

You are very classy, meaning that you value the classics. You value old things, good things which have stood the test of time. You value things which have been proven worthy and valuable, even if no one else these days sees them that way. Your life is touched by a certain 'pietas', or piety; perhaps you are even a Stoic. Nonetheless, you have a certain fascination with the grotesque and the profane. Also, the modern world rejects you like a bad transplant. Your problem is that Latin has been obsolete for a long time. What obsolete skill are you? -- brought to you by Quizilla

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visitor or sinister?
so starting yesterday evening, one of my roomies is having two friends (from back East) stay over until tuesday. i didn't mind, really, when i thought about it two weeks ago, but then a few situations have presented themselves that have made me re-consider my willingness to house guests:

1. his guests are two girls
2. both are using Louis' and my bathroom ad libitum*

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website (sufficiently) done

whew! i finally got done tweaking WP to the amount that will satisfy me for a while; now i can start the process of actually filling the website with data. as you may be able to tell from my site, i am partial to a clean and simple design, with an appropriate use of whitespace. as my footer mentions, i used someone else's design and just modified it to meet my own ends. it is by no means perfect, but i would like to think that it serves both the purpose of function as well as aesthetics. i actually like the pastel-colored theme: it's light on the eyes and doesn't seem too showy. anyway, if anyone has suggestions, i'd love to hear them, but of course, i'm not probably going to spend any more time on design for now. prepare for the content! :-D

It’s a lovely design, and I look forward to more data (esp. on linguistics and Latin).

Thanks for letting me know about your blog, Dave. The site is definitely stylish. :-)

Hope things are doing well. Good luck on finals!

nicely done, nicely done. I like the clean and simple. WordPress is great too. Very powerful and configurable.

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time for finals

alright, so next week is finals week, and i have a shitload of work to do before then. actually, my finals have already started in a sense, since my phonology class only has a problem set to do (which is due tomorrow by 2pm). i'm mostly done with the analysis, just need to touch it up a bit here and there. it's on complex codas in Lebanese Arabic, and it's a whole lot of fun! the "correctness" of having two consonants in the coda is determined by how sonorant the consonant is (sonority is pretty much the loudness of the sound, with vowels being obviously louder than consonants). it's pretty much that the second consonant has to be less sonorous than the first consonant in a coda. for instance, [n] is more sonorous than [t], so in English there is [nt], as in "bunt". sonority rules for languages, from what i understand, are pretty similar, but there are slight variations here and there and there are lot finer gradations in this sonority hierarchy, but you probably get the general idea. so back to the Lebanese Arabic consonants, the whole problem is about explaining these "finer gradations". and like i said, it's fun (at least to me)!

another thing i have to do is study for a final. one of my finals is actually going to be this saturday instead of the following saturday because it is more convenient for certain people in the class. so i have to read and review all the structure and vocabulary of Zapotec i have learned thus far. it's not going to be the funnest thing i've ever done, but i'm in the mindset of doing the bare minimum (i'm taking the class pass/no pass, and i'm not going to study it further next quarter, so "major on the majors and minor on the minors").

on top of that studying, i have to write up a research proposal by tomorrow afternoon, which explains in layman's terms what my phonetics-phonology research is about. i had actually already written up the proposal, but i used way too much linguistics jargon for the intended audience (according to my faculty mentor, and i totally agree with her criticisms). therefore, this is good practice for me to clearly express abstract ideas in simple terms without being too vague.

another item on my to-do list is to finish up reading for my two finals monday and tuesday, 1st and 2nd Language Learning: From Childhood to Adolescence and Language of Politics & Advertising, respectively. i have a lot to read for the one on tuesday, altho' the material is very engaging. for the one on monday, i only have about 20 pages to read, so no big whoop. anyway, that's all i really have to do before this weekend is over, and it will always be tough to struggle between what i need to do and what i want to do. best of luck to everyone who has finals, and to those of you who don't: punks!

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