whipping words

[Herb Stahlke]

And linguists do it with cunning.

Herb

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> Subject:      Re: whipping words
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>
> I'm off topic, but the discussion reminds me of my favorite bumper sticker:
>
> BANK TELLERS DO IT WITH INTEREST.  PENALTY FOR EARLY WITHDRAWAL.
>
> Bill Palmer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 11:47 AM
> Subject: Re: whipping words
>
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: whipping words
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>>
>> At 10:41 AM -0500 12/10/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>Can you rule out that it's the imperative?
>>
>> I think we can given the intonation.  Plus the general cultural context:
>> The form of the statement is precisely that of the bumper sticker
>> meme, as in the classic:
>>
>> RUGBY PLAYERS DO IT WITH LEATHER BALLS
>>
>> where the statement is invariably generic (not imperative), X denotes
>> a class defined by occupation or some other relevant property, and Y
>> is a manner adverb or prepositional phrase.  Let's see--ah, good,
>> here's a web site with countless examples of such "actual" bumper
>> stickers, with double entendres ranging from the subtle to the
>> strained to the obvious to the gross:
>> http://www.devonavenue.com/entertainment/humor.htm
>> (Linguists are included in a fairly predictable way--I'd have gone
>> with "with recursive embedding" myself--but you'll have to supply
>> your own bumper stickers for how dialectologists and lexicographers
>> do it.)
>> No entry for Dominatrix (singular or plural), but there are a few
>> indirectly relevant ones:
>>
>> COMPUTER SCIENTISTS DO IT ON COMMAND
>> PROGRAMMERS DO IT ON COMMAND
>> SOLDIERS DO IT ON COMMAND
>>
>> (Not officers, you'll notice.)
>>
>> Plus, as I mentioned, one doesn't give commands to a dominatrix--that
>> would pretty much defeat the whole point of a dominatrix and turn her
>> into a submittrix.
>>
>> LH
>>
>>>"Dominatrix, do it on
>>>command!"  Possible, given Larry's next-to-last sentence (a question)
>>>below?  Is there a command to the dominatrix?
>>>
>>>Unlikely, I assume, but mustn't we eliminate all other hypotheses?
>>>
>>>At 12/10/2009 12:09 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>>>From a current TV commercial for, it appears, "Wonderful Pistachios":
>>>>
>>>>A woman dressed in a dominatrix outfit with a pistachio-green bustier
>>>>(if that's the right word)
>>>
>>>and don't play innocent with us!
>>>
>>>Joel
>>>
>>>>holds a coiled whip in her hand and places
>>>>a nut on the seat of a straight-back chair. She then stands back at
>>>>arm's length from the chair and nut, presumably a pistachio.
>>>>Voice-over:
>>>>
>>>>"Dominatrix do it..."
>>>>
>>>>[she unleashes the whip, which neatly cracks the nut in half with a
>>>>loud snap]
>>>>
>>>>"...on command.  Wonderful Pistachios.  Get Cracking."
>>>>
>>>>The interest is, of course, not just another run-of-the-mill
>>>>S&M-infused nut commercial but the reanalysis of "dominatrix" as a
>>>>plural. Of what, one wonders--"dominatrick"?  And don't dominatrixes,
>>>>or dominatrices, standardly make *others* do things on command rather
>>>>than doing things on command themselves?  Clearly, mangling the
>>>>morphology is just the first step on that slippery slope...
>>>>
>>>>LH
>>>>
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>>>
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