Sunday Funnies 141228 − 2015 Preview

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is clairvoyance.

clair-voy-ance |kle(ə)rˈvoiəns|

noun

the supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact : she stared at the card as if she could contact its writer by clairvoyance.

ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French, from clair ‘clear’ + voir ‘to see.’

Let's take a peek at what you can expect to encounter in Sunday Funnies 2015:

1. Eno will make room for whatever the new year has to offer in his own, inimitable way!

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2. The Pun-ishment will continue.

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3. We'll learn more about what makes Calvin tick.

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4. I'll continue to link idiotic behavior to right-wing conservatism.

Bob's inability to fathom the concepts of change and progress qualifies him as a viable presidential candidate for the GOP.

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and

5. Republicans will continue to make it easy for me to do just that.

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Meanwhile,

6. Americans will continue to make it easy for Republicans to deny science.

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7. Euphemisms and innuendos will abound...

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8. As will sarcasm and satire...

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9. Along with the occasional gaffe, mistake, error, slip, faux pas, indiscretion, impropriety, miscalculation, gaucherie, solecism; informal slip-up, howler, boo-boo, fluff, flub, blooper, goof, malapropism, misuse, misapplication, infelicity, slip of the tongue, Freudian slip, and/or blunder.

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10. You can count on an occasional dollop of heroic adventure and suspense.

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11. As was the case in 2014, you'll be treated to gems of grammatical and linguistic pedagogy of the highest order.

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12. Sunday Funnies 2015 should be fun-filled, intellectually stimulating, and profitable.

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13. Now, let's all stay up and wait for the ball to drop on New Years Eve.

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Christmas 2014 - Ghosts of Christmas Past

Now that the presents have all been unwrapped, it's time to wrap up Christmas 2014.

1. And lo, it came to pass that a simple creche succumbed to embellishment.

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2. Short Lifespan

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3. SONY Un-Done

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4. Hearing those words, she gave a scythe of relief.

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5. He filled up the stockings, and he was a jerk.

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6. It's the thought that counts.

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7. The cone doesn't fall far from the evergreen.

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8. Clarence Sale

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9. Present-ation

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10. Misguided Magi

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11. A Monstrosity of a Mash-up

While I appreciate Dave Blazek's attempt at humor, I must set the record - undoubtedly a 33 1/3 RPM HiFi vinyl disk narrated by Boris Karloff - straight.

The green-complected character with bolts in his neck is not Frankenstein. He is simply "the monster." Frankenstein is the mad doctor who created him. 

I'm betting the doctor is nestled all snug in his bed with visions of body parts dancing in his head, blissfully unaware of the ignorant and erroneous bestowal of his name upon his nameless creation.

But what the hay. A careful reading of the Gospel of Matthew will preclude any depiction of the Wise Men in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, with or without a badly misnamed monster. Matthew tells us they showed up about two years later with their gifts.

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12. And a little child shall mislead them.

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13. Um...let's rethink that last comment.

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Sunday Funnies 141221 - Sino-illogical Edition

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is wordplay:

word-play |ˈwərdˌplā|

noun

the witty exploitation of the meanings and ambiguities of words, esp. in puns.

* * *

In case you hadn't heard, at the end of November China banned wordplay, and puns in particular. The country’s print and broadcast watchdog ruled that "there is nothing funny about them," and that they "may mislead the public - especially children."

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The real danger, of course, is that wordplay tends to encourages independent thinking rather than blind obedience to authority.

With that in mind, I offer the following olio, not to butter you up and not by occident, but as an attempt to orient you on your path to increasingly independent thought.

Perhaps these comics and comments will prove instrumental in helping you master the banned art form.

1. The seller was no Indian giver.

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2. Computer geeks would call this an "I D ten T" error.

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3. 

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4. I've herd puns that served up a beefier paunch line with more mooving imagery.

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5. It's a calculated risk.

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6. Wordplay In The Snow - Thaw out your frozen thesaurus!

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7. Now what?

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8. I had to squeeze this one in.

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9. Is this animal husbandry or just horsing around in a stable relationship?

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10. Gift Exchange

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Merry Christmas!

Sunday Funnies 141214 Coda

co-da |ˈkōdə|

noun Music

the concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.

• the concluding section of a dance, esp. of a pas de deux or the finale of a ballet in which the dancers parade before the audience.

• a concluding event, remark, or section : his new novel is a kind of coda to his previous books.

ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: Italian, from Latin cauda ‘tail.’

Thanks to corporate sponsored Sunday morning "news" shows, we've watched Dick Cheney's hate-mongering song and dance routine countless times, thinking it was a solo performance by a political virtuoso.

Today I give you the coda, from which it becomes clear that Mr. Cheney's fancy footwork is in fact a pas de deuxplicity in which the danseur noble and the choreographer are one and the same.

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Sunday Funnies 141214

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is torture:

tor-ture |ˈtôr ch ər|

noun

the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain.

• great physical or mental suffering or anxiety : the torture I've gone through because of loving you so.

• a cause of such suffering or anxiety : dances were absolute torture because I was so small.

verb [ trans. ]

inflict severe pain on : most of the victims had been brutally tortured.

• cause great mental suffering or anxiety to : he was tortured by grief.

DERIVATIVES

torturer noun

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [distortion, twisting,] or a physical disorder characterized by this): via French from late Latin tortura ‘twisting, torment,’ from Latin torquere ‘to twist.’

1. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...hurts.

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2. Tiny Tim has a dickens of a time asking God to bless the subjects of the previous cartoon...

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3. That was then; this is now...

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4. You voted for Bush and Cheney, not once, but twice. Now, take your medicine.

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5. The Turn Of The Screw...And The Screwed

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6. In case you didn't know...

Lady Liberty has an official name. It is Liberty Enlightening The World. However, I don't think this is quite what Auguste Bartholdi had in mind when he designed and named his statue.

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7. The Story of the Mc-Cain En-Abel

Where were these words when you were supporting the morally bankrupt policies of "W" and his sadistic, self-righteous, hate-mongering Veep, Johnny-Boy?

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8. The Former-Veep touts his bona fides as a sadistic, self-righteous, hate-monger.

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9. As a result of his efforts, Dick has made a friend in low places.

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10. Naturally, he has like-minded friends in the halls of Congress

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11. The brainwashing continues every week on the Sunday morning "news" programs.

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12. Coming Soon to a Classroom in Your Home Town...

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13. The Truth Will Out!

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14. The End!

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