Today’s Rhymes With Orange and Zippy the Pinhead, both with portmanteaus:

Doctor + octopus. But notice that the creature in the strip is apparently a heptapus, with seven arms/feet rather than eight. As a matter of fact, there is a seven-arm octopus. From Wikipedia:

The Seven-arm Octopus (Haliphron atlanticus) is one of the two largest known species of octopus and based on scientific records has a total estimated length of 4 m and mass of 75 kg. The other large existing octopus is the Giant Pacific Octopus of the species Enteroctopus dofleini.

The Seven-arm Octopus is so named because in males the hectocotylus (a specially modified arm used in egg fertilization [i.e. a cephalopod penis]) is coiled in a sac beneath the right eye. Due to this species’ thick gelatinous tissue, the arm is easily overlooked, giving the appearance of just seven arms. However, like other octopuses, it actually has eight.

The genus name Heptapus has been entertained for the creature:

The genera Alloposina Grimpe, 1922, Alloposus Verrill, 1880 and Heptapus Joubin, 1929 are junior synonyms of Haliphron.

The sad diner + dinosaur (plus Lithuanians, who come up often in Zippy; French dip, which made a recent Zippy appearance in this blog; and the movie Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia combined with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen). Others have coined the portmanteau. Here, for example, is Wayne Gayla on his Jersey Bites site on 2/24/11:

A Diner-Saur Classic in Wall [NJ]

While our beloved drive-ins and neighborhood theaters are all but extinct from the American landscape and experience, there are a few survivors to testify to a mainstay of Jersey life, from the 1930s through the 60s. The Roadside Diner is one of those survivors.  Perhaps that is the message they are sending with the  bright green sculpture of a dinosaur who shares their space on Route 33 and 34 in Wall.

The Roadside Diner is the epitome of the classic, shimmering, stainless steel prefabricated units that punctuated two lane highways of the 30′s and 40′s and 50′s.  It was built in Paterson, NJ, by Silk City, in the 1940s and brought to Wall in sections, then reassembled on a foundation.

True to original design, it replicates an old Railroad Dining Car, which once caught the imagination of the American traveler. Narrow interior with tight booths and a long polished Formica counter, set with chrome stools padded with red vinyl. The walls sparkle with the red and white checkered ceramic tile walls. In short, there is no painted surface to upkeep; everything was created for endurance and easy maintenance, right to the chrome window frames and door sill.

… Apparently, I was not the first to discover The Roadside Diner. Bon Jovi’s album cover for “Crossroads” was shot inside the diner. Bruce Springsteens’ video “Girls in their Summer Clothes” was filmed in part at the diner and John Sayles’ movie “Baby It’s You” was shot in part there, also.

The diner in this strip is not the same one as in the French dip strip, nor does it appear to be the Roadside Diner in Wall:

Eventually, the place will be identified in the “Where’s Zippy?” feature on the Zippy site, but at the moment those archives are only up to early 2007, so it could be some time. The drawing in the strip — virtually a generic diner, and nameless to boot — doesn’t give you a lot to go on.

I’m now using 85¢ stamps in a recent Birds of Prey series – northern goshawk, peregrine falcon, golden eagle, osprey and northern harrier — to mail from the U.S. to Canada. In an unfortunately small-pixel image (the best I’ve been able to find):

The bird that caught my eye was the Northern Harrier (row by row, # 5, 3, 1, 4), so I wondered how harrier came to be used for a bird, a dog, and a cross-country runner.

From NOAD2, the compact story:

harrier ¹: a person who engages in persistent attacks on others or incursions into their land

harrier ²: [a] a hound of a breed used for hunting hares; [b] a cross-country runner

harrier ³: a long-winged, slender-bodied bird of prey with low quartering flight [Genus Circus, family Accipitridae: several species.]

harrier ¹ is a derived agent-noun from the verb harry:

persistently carry out attacks on (an enemy or an enemy’s territory).

• persistently harass: he bought the house for Jenny, whom he harries into marriage.

ORIGIN Old English herian, hergian, of Germanic origin, probably influenced by Old French harier, in the same sense.

From this we get the proper name Harrier:

The Harrier, informally referred to as the Jump Jet, is a family of military jet aircraft capable of vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) operations. Historically the Harrier was developed in Britain to operate from ad-hoc facilities such as car parks or forest clearings, avoiding the need for large air bases vulnerable to tactical nuclear weapons. Later the design was adapted for use from aircraft carriers. (link)

Then the hound, harrier ²[a]:

ORIGIN late Middle English hayrer, from hare + -er¹. The spelling change was due to association with harrier¹.

So, another word originally, with some interference (at least orthographic) from the first.

From Wikipedia:

The Harrier is a small to medium sized dog breed of the hound class, used for hunting hares by trailing them. It resembles an English Foxhound but is smaller, though not as small as a Beagle.

Then harrier ²[b], a metaphorical extension of this, used in sports writing, as here:

Mustang Harriers Win O’Neal Invitational

O’Neal hosted the O’Neal Healy Invitational boys’ and girls’ cross country meet Thursday at Sandhills Community College. (link)

Finally, my hawk, harrier ³:

ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as harrower): from harrow ‘harry, rob’ (variant of harry). The spelling change in the 17th cent. was due to association with harrier¹.

A third source, closely related to the first, with spelling adjusted to it. Harrier hawks harry (earlier, harrow) their prey.

Feeling harried by etymology?

Heard last night on KQED, a BBC Science program, “Pyrenean desman: On the trail of Europe’s weirdest beast” by Rebecca Morelle. Odd creatures indeed, with a misleading name.

From Wikipedia on the desmans in general:

The desmans or tribe Desmanini are one of several tribes of the mole family Talpidae.

This tribe consists of two species of semiaquatic insectivores found in Europe; one in Russia and the other in the Pyrenees. Both species are considered to be vulnerable. They have webbed paws and their front paws are not well adapted for digging.

The species are (in the genus Galemys) the Pyrenean desman (G. pyrenaicus) and (in the genus Desmana) the Russian desman (D. moschata). On the former (from the Arkive site, which has links to references):

Named after the place of its home, the Pyrenean desman is a small aquatic insectivore closely related to moles, also known as the Iberian desman. This adept swimmer has many adaptations to its aquatic habitat, including an elongated head and body with a long tail, webbed, paddle-like hindfeet, and the ability to close both ears and nostrils to prevent water getting in. In contrast to moles, which have powerful digging front legs, desmans have powerful hind legs that are longer than the forefeet to help propel them through the water. The tail is also slightly flattened vertically, acting as a rudder and helping to steer and direct the animal as it swims. A double layer of fine dark greyish-brown fur includes a dense waterproof underfur and oily guard hairs. The eyes are tiny and eyesight is poor, but the long, black, almost hairless snout is highly sensitive and used to locate prey.

A photo:

A 1927 drawing of the Russian desman:

Now, the name. From OED2, the etymology:

In French and German desman, < Swedish desman-råtta musk-rat, < desman (Danish desmer, Icelandic des-) musk.

According to the OED, the Russian desman is known as the musk-shrew or musk-rat, but these creatures are not shrews, rats, or muskrats, but are most closely related to moles (which, indeed, they resemble, though they are semiaquatic rather than subterranean and have highly developed hindlimbs rather than forelimbs).

The BBC Science story is an entertaining lightweight piece, focusing especially on the difficulties of studying these reclusive nocturnal creatures.

Today’s Bizarro returns to play with initialisms:

That would be Curly, Larry and Moe in the original, with Moe replaced by a chimerical genetically modified organism (GMO).

Earlier play with initials: Rhymes With Orange on LMAO vs. MAO (here), Bizarro on ATM vs. TM (here).

Ingredients for this strip: the Three Stooges, GMOs, and chimeras.

On the Three Stooges, from Wikipedia:

The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: “Moe, Larry, and Curly” or “Moe, Larry, and Shemp,” among other lineups.

On GMOs, again from Wikipedia:

A genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes. Transgenic organisms, a subset of GMOs, are organisms that have inserted DNA from a different species. GMOs are the constituents of genetically modified foods.

Many GMOs aren’t notably different in appearance from naturally occurring organisms, but some stand out. For example, GloFish:

The GloFish is a patented and trademarked brand of genetically modified (GM) fluorescent fish. A variety of different GloFish are currently on the market. Zebrafish were the first GloFish available in pet stores, and are now sold in bright red, green, orange-yellow, blue, and purple fluorescent colors. Recently an “Electric Green” colored tetra (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) has been added to the lineup. Although not originally developed for the ornamental fish trade, it is one of the first genetically modified animals to become publicly available as a pet.

… In 1999, Dr. Zhiyuan Gong and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore were working with a gene that encodes the green fluorescent protein (GFP), originally extracted from a jellyfish, that naturally produced bright green fluorescence. They inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish’s genome, which caused the fish to be brightly fluorescent under both natural white light and ultraviolet light. Their goal was to develop a fish that could detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins.

Other GloFish were then developed. Here’s an assortment of them:

The development of GM organisms, especially food, has aroused substantial opposition, often couched as an aversion to “Frankenfood”. (See this posting for the history of the portmanteau Frankenfood and of other Franken- words.) Opponents were inspired to create images of all sorts of monstrous hybrid creatures, like this cauliflower sheep:

Don Piraro’s GM Moe is in this tradition, but carried to a chimerical extreme:

The Chimera (also Chimaera or Chimæra) ( … Greek: Χίμαιρα, Khimaira, from χίμαρος, khimaros, “she-goat”) was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of three animals: a lion, a serpent and a goat. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that ended in a snakes’s head, the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. The term chimera has also come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals. (link)

The lobster claw is an especially nice touch.

In the NYT Science Times on Tuesday, an enthusiastic appreciation (“New Book Brings Joyful Splash of Plumage, Real and Imagined”, by James Gorman) of Ralph Steadman’s new book, on birds:

A book of birds, real and otherwise, hatched from the imagination of the artist Ralph Steadman, is bound to be a feast for the eyes. How wonderful to discover that it is a feast of words, as well.

… Mr. Steadman and his co-author, Ceri Levy, in “Extinct Boids” (being published Oct. 30 by Bloomsbury …) [have created] a thrilling book of surprised, silly, sullen, sad, extinct, real and unreal birds.

The book is focussed on extinct birds, with a considerable number of  imaginary birds plus a few living real birds.

Two of the imaginary birds, the South Eastern Tellychat and the Rotten Pink Scrawl:

The (common) names of the creatures are wonderful, as are their expressions: Steadman’s birds express emotions, have intentions and opinions, make plans, and so on, in the tradition of fanciful creatures (and plants) invented by artists and writers. Edward Lear and James Thurber are figures in this tradition, in which names (common or taxonomic or both), drawings, and descriptions work together to make portraits that are both perceptive and hilarious. A little more from Gorman on Steadman’s birds:

They come in rich color, some serene and some disturbing, from the antifreeze green of the Splattered Shag’s beak to the primitive red and black of the Angered Maggot Sleet. And what is most remarkable about these imaginary creatures is that they live, if not in harmony, then in creative discord with real birds, most extinct, some living: the passenger pigeon, great auk, Mauritius owl, Rodrigues solitaire and Lord Howe gerygone (yes, the solitaire and gerygone were real).

(There’s a slide show here.)

Steadman is yet another artist most often labeled as a cartoonist, but who’s also a caricaturist, illustrator, and writer — in his case, with an audience of both children and (for his editorial cartoons and in his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson) adults. In the company of Maurice Sendak, Raymond Briggs, Ronald Searle, and Saul Steinberg.

My life is occasionally enlivened by mammuthiana — mammoth-oriented items (artifacts, books, humor, artistic representations, etc.) that are amusing, touching, scientifically interesting, whatever. To soothe my surgical days, Max Meredith Vasilatos has sent me one of these: a truly giant t-shirt (XL, but very very generous) depicting an impressive woolly mammoth. A photo of me modeling the clothing, with the tusks pointing suggestively towards my crotch (crotch not shown here):

The woolly mammoth is one of my totem animals (these days my primary one): see some history here., so the shirt was much appreciated.

(Another recent mammoth t-shirt here.)

This is so last week’s news, but Barack Obama has had a genus of (prehistoric) creatures named for him: Obamadon. Oh, those whimsical taxonomists!

Wikipedia has a fine piece on it, beginning:

Obamadon is an extinct genus of polyglyphanodontian lizard from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Fossils have been found in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana and the Lance Formation of Wyoming. Researchers describe it as being distinguished by its “tall, slender teeth with large central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves.” The type species was named Obamadon gracilis after United States president Barack Obama, “in reference to the tall, straight teeth, and the manner in which Mr. Obama has acted as a role model of good oral hygiene for the world.” According to Nicholas R. Longrich of Yale University, the creature “was probably a foot long, [and] with these tall, slender teeth it used to eat insects and plant matter.

An artist’s rendering; Obamadon is the little blue lizard in the foreground:

References from the technical literature (all from Wikipedia; not my work):

Longrich, N. R.; Bhullar, B. A. S.; Gauthier, J. A. (2012). “Mass extinction of lizards and snakes at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. doi:10.1073/pnas.1211526110.

Campbell, Hank. Obamadon Gracilis – Toothy Lizard Named After American President, Science 2.0, October 12, 2012.

And the media:

Tau, Byron (December 10, 2012). “Extinct lizard named after Obama”. Politico.

Koebler, Jason (December 10, 2012). “Ancient Extinct Lizard Named After President Obama”. US News and World Report.

Johnson, Carolyn Y. (December 10, 2012). “Yale scientists name Obamadon, a slender-jawed lizard, after the President”. Boston Globe.

Levy, Pima (December 10, 2012). “Scientists Name Extinct Lizard ‘Obamadon’ After President”. Talking Points Memo.

Plus Obama and others in species names:

Crew, Becky (November 29, 2012). “All the Presidents’ fish: Five new species named after Obama, Clinton, Roosevelt, Carter and Gore”. Scientific American.

Then from Jon Lighter on ADS-L, yet another media report on Obamadon and a query:

Is this the first prehistoric beast to be named for its physical resemblance to a specific human being?

My heart says yes.

Somehow I doubt it, given the inclinations of taxonomists, but it would be nice to think so.

In the NYT Sunday Review of 3/31/13, a piece by Akiko Busch (author of The Incidental Steward: Reflections on Citizen Science) on “Why I Count Glass Eels”, about

half-hour increments spent on spring afternoons at the Fall Kill, a tributary of the Hudson River. In addition to pondering the notions of changeability and continuity that watching a stream flow into a river tend to prompt, I was also counting and weighing glass eels, tiny transparent fish only two or three inches long that enter the tributaries of the river each spring.

Which is to say, I was practicing something called citizen science, loosely defined as scientific research in which amateurs help experts gather data.

Here’s a single glass eel:

To come: some more about citizen science, then a bit about the compound glass eel, a fair amount on eels, and eventually eels as food, especially in unagi sushi.

Busch continues:

Eels are tiny envoys from the realm of the inconceivable. Scientists have never been able to document their mating or birth in the North Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea, nor do they know what governs their voyage to the coast’s freshwaters. In recent years, their population in the Hudson has declined, possibly because of contaminants in the water, dams, overfishing, parasites, habitat loss, hydropower projects or some other yet unknown factor.

It is a change the Atlantic States Marines Fisheries Commission would very much like to understand. To help them do so, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hudson River Estuary Program and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System have established a juvenile eel monitoring program, in which I participated in 2011 and will again this year.

On glass eel: This is a N1 + N2 compound with the semantics N2 LIKE N1 ‘a N2 resembling a N1′. So ‘an eel resembling glass’ (in that it’s transparent). Also in this pattern: glass ceiling, glass jaw, glass lizard, glass noodle (things that are like glass in several different ways). Compounds of this set typically do not have “compound stress”, with the primary accent on N1, but instead usually have the primary accent on N2, the way Adj + N phrases do (I say “usually”, because of cases like glassfish, which has primary accent on N1). Also with primary accent on N2, obligatorily or optionally, are compounds in the pattern N2 MADE OF N1, like glass eye (an eye-like object made of glass) and glass wool (a wool-like substance made of glass) — plus glass ceiling referring to a ceiling actually made of glass and glass fish, referring to a fish-like object (an ornament, say) made of glass.

On the creatures, from Wikipedia:

Glass eels typically refers to an intermediary stage in the eel’s complex life history between the leptocephalus [or larval] stage and the juvenile (elver) stage. Glass eels are defined as “all developmental stages from completion of leptocephalus metamorphosis until full pigmentation”. The term typically refers to a transparent glass eel of the family Anguillidae. These are the freshwater eels that spawn in the ocean, and then enter estuaries as glass eels and swim upstream to live in freshwater during their juvenile growth phase. As the glass eels enter freshwater they start to become pigmented and are typically referred to as elvers. The elvers grow larger and are referred to as yellow eels, which are the juvenile stage of eels before their reproductive maturation begins.

Glass eel above, then some elvers:

A yellow eel:

And finally, an adult American eel:

The adults are predators, with rows of sharp teeth. They can bite, but not nearly as viciously as the (marine) moray eels (aka morays).

On the American eel:

The American eel [Anguilla rostrata] is found along the Atlantic coast including Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River and as far north as the St. Lawrence River region. Is also present in the river systems of the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in some areas further south. Like all anguillid eels, American eels hunt at night, and during the day it hides in mud, sand or gravel very close to shore, roughly 5 to 6 feet under. They feed on crustaceans, aquatic insects, small insects, and probably any aquatic organisms that they can find and eat.

American eels are economically important in various areas along the East Coast as bait for fishing for sport fishes such as the striped bass, or as a food fish in some areas. Their recruitment stage, the glass eel, are also caught and sold for use in aquaculture in a few areas, although this is now restricted in most areas. (link)

There’s an entertaining report on cooking yellow eels (with a recipe for Yellow Eel with Chives), here. And now that we’re in the food zone, it’s time for unagi. From Wikipedia:

Unagi is the Japanese word for freshwater eels, especially the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica. Saltwater eels are known as anago in Japanese. Unagi are a common ingredient in Japanese cooking.

Unagi is served as part of unadon (sometimes spelled unagidon, especially in menus in Japanese restaurants in Western countries), a donburi dish with sliced eel served on a bed of rice. A kind of sweet biscuit called unagi pie made with powdered unagi also exists.

Unagi is high in protein, vitamin A, and calcium.

Specialist unagi restaurants are common in Japan, and commonly have signs showing the word unagi with hiragana う (transliterated u), which is the first letter of the word unagi. Lake Hamana in Hamamatsu city, Shizuoka prefecture is considered to be the home of the highest quality unagi; as a result, the lake is surrounded by many small restaurants specializing in various unagi dishes. Unagi is often eaten during the hot summers in Japan. There is even a special day for eating unagi, the midsummer day of the Ox (doyo no ushi no hi). [This last is a wonderful fact.]

Unakyu is a common expression used for sushi containing eel & cucumber.

Due to the health hazards of eating raw freshwater fish, eels are always cooked, and in Japanese food, are always served with teri sauce.

Unagi is a standard topping for nigirizushi (sushi rice with something on top). From a great many tempting photos available on the net, here’s one of Freshwater Eel Sushi at Yen Sushi & Sake Bar, Los Angeles:

Unagi can also be coarsely chopped and used as the filling in makizushi (a filling on sushi rice on nori, all rolled up and then cut into rounds). I’m very fond of it in both nigiri and maki form. Which brings me to a story about my man Jacques.

Many years ago, when J was a teenager, he spent summers with his mother’s family in France. One summer the family realized that J was of draftable age in France and (at least at the time) the fact that his mother was a French citizen meant that if he spent more than some number of days in the country he’d be subject to the draft. So his uncle Maurice took him out of the country for a while, driving north, eventually to Denmark, but stopping at interesting places along the way. One stop was at a famous eel restaurant in Belgium — it seems that there are several of these — and there J was traumatized by the array of tanks with live eels in them: big, sharp-toothed, ugly, nasty eels. The experience convinced him that he detested eel as a food.

Reel ahead many years, to when I introduce J to sushi, which he took to enthusiastically, except for some varieties (ika and uni, in particular) whose texture didn’t suit him. I saw no reason why he’d object to the texture of unagi, but I’d heard the story about the Belgian eel restaurant, so when I ordered for us (he left the ordering to me, though he’d often ask for favorites), I decided to avoid the word eel, and even  unagi (in case he found unagi translated as eel on a menu), and in a moment of inspiration hit on the name brownfish. It instantly became one of his favorites, in both nigiri and maki form.

(His mother thought this story was incredibly funny.)

Rob Partington points me to recent stories on the 17-year cicadas, under the heading swarmageddon (swarm + Armageddon) — a topical portmanteau. That led me to the preposterous shawarmageddon, involving the food shawarma.

A few cites:

[Philadelphia Inquirer site 5/8/13] Swarmageddon: Rise of ‘Brood II’ cicadas (link)

[NPR story of 4/1/13] It’s Almost Cicada Time! Help Radiolab Track #Swarmageddon (link)

[Yummy Math site, for kids] Cicada swarmaggedon: Most of the life cycle of the Magicicada Septendecim is spent underground. Then at 17 year intervals, these cicadas emerge from the ground, climb deciduous trees, molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die. (link)

(Note the common misspelling of Armageddon, as Armaggedon, in the third one. The writer knows there’s a double consonant in there — but where?)

Then came shawarmageddon, a “dinner in a bottle” from the MeatWater site. The product:

  (#1)

And the preposterous copy:

Chicken shawarma, tabboulleh (cardamom): Shawarma: Meat Stack of the Muslim World! Muslims invented advanced mathematics, suicide bombs and shawarma! Advanced Mathematics = Geometry = Conical Structures = Shawarma, the upside-down cone of meat strips that is grilled on all sides and shaved into a pita. Suicide Bombs = Nihilistic Worldview = Hatred of All Living Things = “Let’s roast that stupid camel” = Shawarma! At MeatWater, our SHAWARMAGEDDON flavor is made with chicken instead of camel but we put all our resentment of modernity and misanthropy into a survival beverage that will fuel your rage right down the throat of the Great Satan! When it’s time for Jihad, it’s time for SHWARMAGEDDON!

Hard to take this seriously.

On to shawarma (sometimes spelled shwarma). From Wikipedia:

Shawarma  … is a Levantine Arab meat preparation, where lamb, chicken, turkey, beef, veal, or mixed meats are placed on a spit (commonly a vertical spit in restaurants), and may be grilled for as long as a day. Shavings are cut off the block of meat for serving, and the remainder of the block of meat is kept heated on the rotating spit. Although it can be served in shavings on a plate (generally with accompaniments), shawarma also refers to a sandwich or wrap made with shawarma meat. Shawarma is eaten with tabbouleh, fattoush, taboon bread, tomato, and cucumber. Toppings include tahini, hummus, pickled turnips and amba. It is now a fast-food staple worldwide.

The preparation:

And a (lamb) shawarma sandwich:

I first came across shawarma as an Israeli street food sold in shops in American cities. It’s first cousin to kebabs (which are often sold in pita sandwiches), for instance the Turkish döner kebab (discussed here), and the Greek gyro(s) (also often sold in pita sandwiches). My local Israeli restaurant (Oren’s Hummus Shop on University Avenue in Palo Alto) offers beef/lamb kebabs, in pita or on their own, but not classic shawarma.

So much for food. Now back to -mageddon. Previous appearances on this blog:

12/22/08 “Portmansnow words“: snowmageddon

2/18/11 “Dingburg portmanteau”: Carmageddon

7/14/11 “For the Angelenos”: carmageddon, karmageddon, courtmageddon

7/19/11 “More -((m)a)geddon”: debtageddon, debtmageddon (plus armadebtdon, gaymageddon, goremageddon)

8/10/11 “-mageddons and -pocalypses”: Obamageddon, heatmageddon, birdmageddon, wordmageddon (with a link to Mark Peters)

5/11/12 “A topical -mageddon”: gaymageddon (with links to other blogs)

-((m)a)geddon is clearly working its way to becoming a libfix.

In the May 4-10 2013 NewScientist, a piece on the “Rat with two faces”", beginning:

Beneath the snow of South Africa’s Drakensberg and Maluti mountains, African ice rats huddle together in burrows for warmth. When they reach the surface, though, it’s a different story.

African ice rats is a wonderful nominal, surprising in its semantics — both African ice and ice rats have some surprise value — and pleasing in its phonology (a double dactyl cut short).

The rest of the story:

Neville Pillay from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and his colleagues monitored 10 colonies of wild ice rats (Otomys sloggetti) for four years.

In all that time, the ice rats interacted above ground just 31 times – and 26 of those encounters were aggressive. In experiments, Pillay’s team found that even ice rats from the same burrow would fight on the surface (Journal of Zoology, doi.org/mb3).

Pillay says food is scarce in the mountains, so the ice rats compete furiously to get enough. They are social when they need to stay warm, but ferocious loners when looking for food. “It works for them,” he says.

So I wrote a little dactylic poem on the subject:

African ice rats are
Highly competitive,
Once on the surface of
African snow.

Back in their burrows they
Cuddle like puppies,
Sharing their warmth in the
Regions below.

For some purposes, you can function fairly well with material in another language, so long as the topic stays within domains that are familiar to you — like linguistics, say. But when you wander into other domains, especially those that are closely tied to sociocultural conventions, things get messy, even if you stick to nouns; there’s just so much to know about cultural artifacts and customs, for example, and a huge vocabulary to acquire in these areas, in the names of animals and plants, etc.

I can deal pretty well with technical material in French, for example, but I’m easily stumped when it comes to artifacts, animals, plants, and the like. By way of illustration: my daughter gave me a big box of postcards on The Art of Instruction, with images of school materials from the 1950s, from mostly French but also some German sources. The German items have no text, but the French material (from Éditions Rossignol — the name is great; rossignol means ‘nightingale’) is heavy with text. For animals and plants, much of the vocabulary is technical teminology from zoology, anatomy, or botany, and that’s fascinating, but I can’t be expected to know these expressions. However, there are also the common names for animals and plants, and they contain many surprises.

That brings me to the tadpole.

The cover of the box, from Chronicle Books (in San Francisco):

  (#1)

And the frog card:

  (#2)

The surprise here was (le) têtard — obviously ‘tadpole’, and fairly obviously tête ‘head’ plus the suffix -ard, used for diminutives or pejoratives (I have basic French vocabulary and know a fair amount about French morphology, but I checked etymological sources just to be sure). And the name makes some sense after the fact: tadpoles are mostly head:

  (#3)

(Feel free to insert a remark about sperm here.)

The point is that I couldn’t possibly have guessed how to translate tadpole into French. Even if I knew the etymology of the English word (which I didn’t, until I looked it up this morning), I’m sure I’d never have hit on têtard. Wikipedia on tadpoles:

A tadpole (also called pollywog or porwigle) is the larval stage in the life cycle of an amphibian, particularly that of a frog or toad. They are usually wholly aquatic, though some species have tadpoles that are terrestrial.

… The name “tadpole” is from Middle English taddepol, made up of the elements tadde, “toad”, and pol, “head” (modern English “poll”). Similarly, “polliwog” is from Middle English polwygle, made up of the same pol, “head” and wiglen, “to wiggle”.

If I’d known that, I might have guessed that tête was involved, but that wouldn’t have gotten me to têtard. You just have to know the word.

Along the same lines, here’s a plant:

  (#4)

There’s a pile of botanical terminology — French for sepal, pistil, achene, and stamen, in particular — but then there’s the common name of the plant, (le) bouton d’or (or bouton-d’or), literally ‘button of gold’. Again, that makes sense after the fact, but I can’t see any way to get from the English common name, buttercup, to the French. (Photos of buttercups in this posting.)

The Art of Instruction cards are in fact a constant education in everyday French vocabulary that I didn’t know and couldn’t have predicted. I’m not sure what use there is for me to know how to talk about tadpoles or buttercups in French, but it entertains me.

On a postcard in the Beautiful Farmyard set (“100 gorgeous portraits of chickens, cows, ducks, owls, pigeons, pigs, rabbits, sheep & tractors”), a Suffolk sheep, identified as “the leading terminal sire breed in the UK”. Terminal sire is obviously a technical term in animal breeding, but its meaning wasn’t obvious to me. Turns out that the breeding practice in question comes in two steps, and a Suffolk ram plays a crucial role in the second, terminal, step.

A Suffolk ram, 7 months old:

From Wikipedia:

Suffolk sheep are a black-faced, open-faced breed of domestic sheep raised primarily for meat.

They are mainly raised for wool and meat production especially when crossed with the progeny of a mountain ewe. For example, a purebred upland ewe such as a Welsh Mountain ewe, might be bred with a breeding sire Bluefaced Leicester ram. This is a Welsh Mule, one of many different types of half-bred ewes. The lamb produced when a half-bred ewe is crossed with a Suffolk ram (as well as with other terminal sire breeds such as Texel, Beltex or Charollais) is considered ideal for meat production, since they have unusually good conformation. The lamb has the easy-care benefits of a mountain ewe, as well as the excellent growth of the Suffolk ram.

So in step 1, cross-bred ewes (with hybrid vigor) are produced, and in step 2, they’re bred with Suffolk rams, producing animals for slaughter.

In this posting I’m going to try to tie together several threads: a recent story about a dancer forced out of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet school for making gay porn videos on the side; the proverbial sexual activity of certain animals, in particular minks (a topic suggested by my recent posting on three fur-bearing mustelids); and the lexical semantics of the verb fuck. You can see the connections — and you can see why this posting might not be to everyone’s taste (though no images over the X line will appear in it).

1. The story of Jeppe Hansen. From several sources on Facebook, this recent story:

Dancer asked to leave Royal Winnipeg Ballet after doing porn

Jeppe Hansen landed a coveted spot last fall. Now he’s accusing the prestigious troupe of unfairly trying to define what constitutes art.

WINNIPEG—An aspiring ballet star who beat out thousands of other dancers for a spot with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has been asked to leave the prestigious troupe after appearing in gay pornographic videos.

Jeppe Hansen got a spot and a scholarship last September in the dance school’s professional division.

Hansen had danced on stages around the world and studied in Montreal, New York City and his native Denmark before joining the RWB……

He appeared in his first pornographic video earlier this year as a side project, but when the ballet found out about the video, it asked him to sign a letter stating that he voluntarily withdrew from the program.

Hansen left the school in late March and moved to New York in April to pursue adult entertainment full-time.

He’s now accusing the ballet company of unfairly trying to define what constitutes art.

The RWB will only say that the school has a code of conduct for students and won’t comment further on personnel issues due to privacy concerns.

The code of conduct, which is included in the school’s student information handbook, says nothing about side projects, such as the video Hansen was in.

Hansen says he hopes to return to professional dance someday.

Hansen, 22, makes videos for the Cocky Boys firm under the name Jett Black. (Presumably, Jett was suggested by the name Jeppe, and Black followed from that, though Hansen is notably blond.) He has a very slim dancer’s body, nicely muscled, and he smiles a lot (including during sex):

I’ve found five Cocky Boys videos featuring Black — listed here with links to brief clips from them:

Introducing Jett Black (link): a solo performance in which Black fucks himself with a big black dildo while jacking off; at the very beginning:

[(1)] My name is, umm, Jett Black. I like to suck. And I like to fuck [conveying 'I like to be fucked', and he demonstrably does].

JD Phoenix Fucks Jett Black (link)

Arnaud Chagall Fucks Jett Black (link)

Gabriel Clark Pounds Jett Black (link)

Jett Black and Levi Karter Flip-fuck (link): billed as the first time either of them tops on camera; this clip has Black screwing Karter

Black’s sexual performances are wildly enthusiastic and energetic; he fucks like a mink, as they say. Quite something to watch.

[Digression: Greg Morrow posted on Facebook this morning:

I spent my morning commute concluding that I want to write a webcomic named "Jett and Muff" about two mismatched get-rich-quick characters. [cf. Mutt and Jeff]

Even better would be a ballet featuring Jett Black as a bottom and his partner, top man Muff Driver.]

2. Proverbial similes. Wiktionary on fuck like a mink:

(simile, vulgar) To be extremely amorous while copulating

– 1979, Warren Murphy, Frank Stevens, Atlantic City, page 209

“She’s a really sweet girl, kind and honest and decent, and all of her clients tell me that she fucks like a mink.”

“With that endorsement and the boots and the whips, maybe I should give her a try.”

– 2006, John Ringo, Kildar

“…But, for general info, she’d just as gladly slide a knife in as anything else. Don’t let her fool you. On the other hand, she can fuck like a mink. Have fun. I’ll take Bambi any day.”

– 2011, Carolyn Briggs, Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost

“You fuck like a mink,” Eric told me one night in his sister’s bedroom. His parents were out of town, and Eric and I had the run of the house.

It’s not an accident that all three citations are about women. That’s a general fact about intransitive. fucks like a N (imputing great enthusiasm in intercourse): a singular subject almost always refers to a woman — or a gay man in the bottom role (like Jett Black) — that is, to someone who gets fucked. Some non-mink examples I’ve googled up:

fucks like a star / a beast / a champ / a pro / a machine / a slut / a wild woman / a rabbit / a weasel

Some of these get many hits (but only a few for weasel; the mustelids are represented by minks).  He fucks like a rabbit (referring to the penetrator in intercourse) does occur, but apparently almost always in a reference to what’s known as rabbit-fucking: fucking someone with very rapid short thrusts.

The focus on women (and gay bottoms) seems to carry over to fucks like crazy / hell.

With plural subjects, things are a bit different; similes like

they fuck like rabbits / monkeys / beasts / minks / animals / weasels / …

are mostly applied to couples (though occasionally to groups of two or more people, attributing enthusiastic fuckability to each of them). Odd fact: I got no hits for These guys fuck like minks, but a modest number for These guys fuck like rabbits, with reference to man-man sex.

3. The lexical semantics of fuck. OED3 (March 2008) gives three relevant subentries for fuck (in this material, sexual intercourse is understood to cover both vaginal and anal intercourse):

coarse slang.

1. In these senses typically, esp. in early use, with a man as the subject of the verb.

a. intr. To have sexual intercourse.

b. trans. To have sexual intercourse with (a person).

c. trans. With an orifice, part of the body [as in fucked his arse], or something inanimate as object. Also occas. intr. with prepositional object of this type.

The entry is framed so as to be neutral as to the participant role played by the referent of the subject. So the OED‘s cites in 1a (intransitive) include:

[(2)] a1749   A. Robertson Poems (?1751) 256   But she gave Proof that she could f—k. [sg. subject referring to a woman]

1865   ‘Philocomus’ Love Feast ii. 17   That night I never shall forget; We fucked and fucked, and fucked and sweat. [pl. subject]

The cites in 1b (transitive) include none parallel to (2), but they are easily found, and easily invented — things like:

(3) She’s fucked every man here, including the butler.

And  Jett Black’s I like to fuck in (1) is parallel to (2) in that the referent of the subject plays the Patient role (as receptor) in the event described, rather than the Agent role (as insertor). So in (1), Black asserts that he likes to suck in the sense of ‘suck cock’, but not that he likes to fuck in the sense of ‘fuck ass’; suck and fuck are not understood in parallel ways. However, they could be: I like to fuck, uttered by a man, could mean either that the speaker likes to fuck other people or that he likes to be fucked (by men). Similarly,

(4) I’ve fucked every man here, including the butler.

spoken by a man, could mean either that the speaker has penetrated all the men in intercourse or that he’s been penetrated by all of them. These strike me as genuine ambiguities (with different assignments of participant roles), but the OED‘s entries treat them as lack of specification (as to the participant roles involved): I like to fuck in (1) would be OED-glossed as something like ‘I like to engage in acts of intercourse’ and (4) would be OED-glossed as something like ‘I’ve engaged in an act of intercourse with every man here, including the butler’.

But the OED-style glosses are unsatisfactory, since they’re consistent with the speaker’s playing different roles on different occasions. This consequence is especially unsatisfactory for (4), which on the lack-of-specification account is true if the speaker has penetrated some of the men and been penetrated by the others, and I think that’s just wrong. Similarly, this account predicts (incorrectly, I believe) that

(5) I’ve fucked every man here, and so has Jett.

is true if the speaker has penetrated all of the men, while Jett has been penetrated by all of them.

In my survey of the participant roles of subjects (here), I didn’t include Patient-subject fuck (and screw etc.), but I think now that it should be added to other Patient-subject cases.

I don’t know when Patient-subject fuck spread to become routine, as it seems to me it is now. Nor do I understand how hearers and readers use context to fix on one interpretation of the syntactic arguments of fuck, though I was struck by how immediately I came to a Patient-subject understanding of fuck in Jett Black’s (1) — even before I saw the rest of the video clip.

In “Sexual lexical semantics”, I took up (among other things) similes like Maggie fucks like a mink, attributing enthusiasm in intercourse to Maggie. And now a comment from Robert G with a simile that was new to me:

“I have to piss like a mink”. One of the old-man’s odd turns of phrase. Surely he was an odd phrase-maker, but I cannot see as this fits into the general drift re: intransitives.

I don’t see intransitivity as the point of interest here (most uses of piss are intransitive). Instead, it’s the choice of comparison animal that intrigues me; where does the mink come from?

Piss like a mink was new to me, and I get no ghit for it and its variants. The standard comparison animal for pissing is the horse: piss like a horse, piss like a racehorse / race horse (elaborating on the simile a bit), piss like a Russian racehorse (introducing alliteration, for fun), piss like a Russian racehorse at the Kentucky Derby (spinning the thing out still more). (All of these have variants with the euphemistic verb pee.) I don’t think there’s any rational basis for any of the elaborations past the simple horse — though people are of course happy to concoct stories that would make sense of them.

But horse makes sense. Horses are large animals, so they piss quite substantial volumes, and the display is particularly impressive for male horses. (There are, of course, quite a few YouTube videos of male horses pissing.)

But then mink. One way minks could get into things would be, in fact, from the conventional simile fuck like a mink, using minks as a stereotypical symbol of excessiveness. And then the indirect allusion to fucking that comes along with mink makes piss like a mink just a bit dirtier than piss like a horse (and it’s assonant as well).

In looking at the simile piss like a horse (here), I came across references to the pizzles of male horses (from which copious piss streams, famously). Pizzle — ‘the penis of an animal, esp. a bull’ (NOAD2) — was a word familiar to me from childhood (close to the farm), but not one I see often these days, except in overheated porn writing (in gems like “gets the pizzle drizzlin’ “).

Etymological point: pizzle has nothing to do with piss, which is onomatopoetic. Cultural point: pizzles have a variety of uses, notably as chew sticks for dogs. I’m not making this up.

In pictures: a bull pizzle, at rest, and a horse pizzle, extended:

(#1)

(#2)

From Wikipedia:

Pizzle is an old English word for penis, derived from Low German pesel or Flemish Dutch pezel, diminutive of pees, meaning ‘sinew’. The word is used today to signify the penis of an animal, chiefly in Australia and New Zealand.

It is also known, at least since 1523, especially in the combination “bull pizzle”, to denote a flogging instrument made from a bull’s penis – compare bullwhip.

Animal consumption: Pizzles are almost exclusively used/produced today as chewing treats for dogs. They are a fibrous muscle, and are prepared by cleaning, stretching, twisting and then drying. Bully Sticks, as they are commonly called, can be smoked in a traditional smoker and can impart a smoked aroma if done with wood. They can also be sun dried or oven baked. The result is a very hard, 80–100 centimetres (30–40 in) long brown stick, which is then sawed into pieces appropriate for the size of the dog.

Glue: The pizzle of a bull was commonly rendered for use as glue.

Human consumption: In addition to being used as a dog treat, pizzles are also eaten by humans for their health benefits such as being low in cholesterol and high in protein, hormones, vitamins and minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Pizzles for human consumption are prepared either by freezing or by drying. Scottish deer pizzles are thought to boost stamina and were used by Chinese athletes at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pizzles can be served in soup, and if they have been dried they can be turned into a paste. Pizzles may also be mixed with alcoholic beverages or simply thawed (if frozen) and eaten. In Jamaica, bull pizzles are referred to as “cow cods” and are eaten as cow cod soup. Like many pizzle-based foods, cow cod soup is claimed to be a male aphrodisiac.

It appears that the pizzles of commerce (from bulls, horses, sheep, deer, or pigs — whose penises have a corkscrew tip — or whatever) are harvested by penectomy. There are devices for the purpose.

Pizzle Sticks for dogs, from one supplier:

(#3)

Two portmanteaus in my mail: a hybrid animal (not new on this blog, but offered here because I now have a really adorable photo) and yet another way of referring to the male anus viewed as a sexual organ.

zonkey. This recent story, here from Good Morning America (passed on to me by Victor Steinbok yesterday): “Rare Italian-born Baby Zonkey in Good Health” by Jon M. Chang:

One part zebra, one part donkey, all parts fuzzy and adorable. Ippo, the foal of a male zebra and a female donkey, was reported to be in good health, just a few days after it was born at an animal reserve in Florence, Italy.

The story of Ippo’s birth reads like the equine equivalent of a romance novel. The father is a zebra that was adopted by the animal reserve after he was rescued from a failing zoo. The mother is a Donkey of Amiata, an endangered animal species.

Even though a fence separated the two animals at the animal reserve, the zebra climbed over and mated with the donkey, producing Ippo. Serena Aglietti, one of the employees at the reserve, said in a statement, “Ippo is the only one of her kind in Italy.”

Zonkeys made a brief appearance in this blog earlier this year, in connection with the portmanteau Marabomber:

Marabomber is a telescoping portmanteau, abbreviating the compound N Marathon bomber. Other portmanteaus are related to copulative compounds;

In some cases, the combination of referents is akin to chemical compounding: a nectaplum ['nectarine plum'] (here) isn’t both a nectarine and a plum, but a hybrid of the two (similarly, tigons and ligers, etc. here). (link)

The second link is to a posting by Ben Zimmer on animal hybrids:

In modern times, when new animal hybrids are engineered by interbreeding, they are often given name-blends: the offspring of a male lion and female tiger is a liger, the offspring of a male tiger and female lion is a tigon, the offspring of a male zebra and female donkey is a zedonk or zonkey, and so forth. The earliest such interbred name-blend that I’m aware of is cattalo, a cattle-buffalo hybrid dating to 1888 (now [superseded] by beefalo). (link)

mangina. Commenting on my man pussy posting, Mike Thomas noted the portmanteau mangina (man + vagina) as yet another alternative to the ones I listed in that posting for the meaning, ‘male anus viewed as a sexual organ’. (I thought I’d posted on mangina already, but apparently not.)

Occurrences of mangina in this sense seem to be few, even in gay porn, and mostly jocular, and there are competing uses of the word — in particular, two senses in which a man can have a vagina. First, there’s the case of Buck Angel, “the man with a pussy”, shown in a photo (#8) in an AZBlogX posting:

Angel is a FTM transsexual who chose not to have genital surgery, so has an intact vagina (while being otherwise highly masculine in appearance and behavior). Angel’s man pussy really is a pussy.

Put in other words, Angel’s mangina really is a vagina.

Then there’s the Mangina Man, who underwent penile inversion. In his own words:

Did you ever fantasize about a real bio man (not an Female To Male transsexual) having a vagina?  I was born male with a 9 inch cock that I had surgically inverted to create a “Mangina” in 1988. I am not a female with a vagina who is disguising her true sex to appear male, but I am a real natal/genetic man with a totally UNREAL FAKE pussy.  My tight, wet, juicy, self-lubricating pussy tastes like cock and balls, because in reality it IS cock and balls, just rearranged.  And I still cum like any other dude — the internal ejaculatory plumbing is all the same.  Also, for those who are wondering, it still smells like male genitalia and not like female. (link)

(I hope very much that he wasn’t born with a 9-inch cock. That’s a sentence that cries out for rewriting.)

From Mike Speriosu on Facebook, this entertaining image:

(#1)

Yes, pure bread poodle. A simple spelling error, based on the homophony of bred and bread and the much greater frequency of bread over bred; errors like bredstick for breadstick are very uncommon, but pure bread / pure-bread / purebread in an animal breeding context is surprisingly frequent.

A few examples, with all three punctuations illustrated:

He’s a pure bread Poodle ( Tea Cup ) He is my “Medical Service Dog “
I have M.S. and get seashers [seizures]. (link)

Anyway Muffy is a pure bread poodle, she’s Penelope’s little dog. (link)

We have an old pure-bread collie that’s really dear to us, but for the past month (maybe 2) she has been biting at her legs and tail raw (and bleeding). (link)

How can I tell if my Boxer is pure bread (link)

if my purebread dog gets stuck with a non purebread dog will this ruin the future to breed purebreads from the stuck one (link) [an astonishing number of people ask this questiom in one form or another]

Meanwhile, the pun in pure bread dog is out there to be used, and at least one cartoonist has snapped it up:

(#2)

I.B. Nelson is Bill Nelson, whose website says he does “Web Development, Graphics, Personal Journal, Cartoons”. The New Breed strip has various contributors; Nelson has drawn a number of other strips (The Darkside, The Nutthouse, Trev ’n’ Trav, etc.) on his own.

From Chris Ambidge, this image of a road sign (from, we think, Australia):

  (#1)

(For a livestock auction, I assume.) Fat sheep to the left!

Searching on “fat sheep” suggests that the phrase has become something of a meme in certain contexts, though frankly I don’t understand its uses. But there certainly are a lot of fat sheep around.

Some of them are fat just because they are very very woolly, from not having been sheared:

  (#2)

Some are corpulent:

  (#3)

But any lamb can lend its goodness to a Mongolian hot pot:

Hot pot …, less commonly Chinese fondue or steamboat, refers to several East Asian varieties of stew, consisting of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, and seafood. Vegetables, fish and meat should be fresh. The cooked food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce. In many areas, hot pot meals are often eaten in the winter. (Wikipedia link)

A display of the stock pot surrounded by a collection of things to dip into it:

  (#4)

Lamb or mutton is just one of the possible meats for hot pot, but it’s lent its name to a restaurant chain:

Little Sheep in U.S. Only Simmers but is Ready to Boil

Inner Mongolia Little Sheep Corporation (Little Sheep) is a huge hot pot chain in China, placing in the Top 500 enterprises of China and ranking number-one in China’s Top 100 fastest growing enterprises. It has established itself as a reputable brand. Like such American chains as McDonald’s and KFC, Little Sheep is moving to globalize itself.

… As of now, Little Sheep has not used the American mainstream media much and solely depends on word-of-mouth. A few technical problems, however, could be disastrous to its business. For example, they have not firmly decided how to translate its official name. The direct translation from its Chinese title [小肥羊 ] is “Little Fat Sheep.” The Union City restaurant is called Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot. On the business cards of the management team, the parent company is called Inner Mongolian Little Lamb USA Corp. On the place set description of the restaurant, the company is called Inner Mongolia Little Sheep Catering Chain Co. There are even some other restaurants in California that are using Little Sheep’s logo for their own businesses. The multiple aliases for the company has the potential to thoroughly confuse its patrons. (link)

Two of today’s cartoons: a Dilbert and a Pearls Before Swine, both with elaborate puns:

(#1)

This turns on the verb weasel, plus the legal phrase (beyond a) reasonable doubt (plus the derivation of adjectives in -able from verbs).

(#2)

And this one turns on the noun and verb hex, plus the food compound Tex-Mex.

In each case, “getting” the comic requires two pieces of information, from different spheres. (And both beyond weaselable doubt and Hex Mex could be viewed either as elaborate imperfect puns or as complex portmanteaus:  weaselable + beyond reasonable doubt, hex + Tex-Mex.)

weasel. From NOAD2 on the verb weasel:

achieve something by use of cunning or deceit: she suspects me of trying to weasel my way into his affections.

• behave or talk evasively.

(presumably from the proverbial ability of weasels to escape from tight places and, in general, to evade capture).  Note that this is a verbing of the noun weasel.

reasonable doubt. From Wikipedia:

Beyond reasonable doubt is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems.

… The use of “reasonable doubt” as a standard requirement in the Western justice system originated in medieval England.

hex. From NOAD2:

verb [with obj.]   cast a spell on; bewitch: he hexed her with his fingers.

noun   a magic spell; a curse: a death hex.
• a witch.

ORIGIN mid 19th cent. (as a verb): from Pennsylvania Dutch … from German

OED2 marks these as “chiefly U.S.” and tracks the senses as follows: the verb (intransitive ‘to practise witchcraft’ and transitive ‘to bewitch, to cast a spell on’), with first cite in 1830, then the noun ‘witch’ (or transferred ‘witch-like female’), with first cite in 1856, then the noun ‘magic spell or curse’, with first cite in 1909.

[Digression on hex signs. From Wikipedia:

Hex signs are a form of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, related to fraktur, found in the Fancy Dutch tradition in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Barn paintings, usually in the form of "stars in circles," grew out of the fraktur and folk art traditions about 1850 when barns first started to be painted in the area. By the 1940s commercialized hex signs, aimed at the tourist market, became popular and these often include stars, compass roses, stylized birds known as distelfinks, hearts, tulips, or a tree of life. Two schools of thought exist on the meaning of hex signs. One school ascribes a talismanic nature to the signs, the other sees them as purely decorative, or "Chust for nice" in the local dialect. Both schools recognize that there are sometimes superstitions associated with certain hex sign themes, and neither ascribes strong magical power to them.

... the term "hex sign" was not used until the 20th Century, after 1924 when Wallace Nutting's book Pennsylvania Beautiful was published.]

Tex-Mex. The (copulative) compound involves the clipping of both Texan and Mexican. OED2 has it as an adjective –

Designating the Texan variety of something Mexican; also occas., of or pertaining to both Texas and Mexico. [1949 Texmex Spanish; 1973 Tex-Mex cooking; 1976 Tex-Mex integration; 1977 the ‘Tex-Mex style’ [of music]

and a noun –

The Texan variety of Mexican Spanish. [first cite 1955]

and in the draft additions of April 2004, it expands on the culinary specialization (as in #2) and the musical specialization:

Also Texmex. A Texan style of cooking using Mexican ingredients, and characterized by the adaptation of Mexican dishes, frequently with more moderate use of hot flavourings such as chilli; food cooked in this style. [first cite 1963]

Also tex-mex. A broad genre of folk and popular music associated with Mexican-American inhabitants of Texas, characterized by use of the accordion and guitar, and often incorporating elements of Czech and German dance music; (occas.) spec. the more traditional form of this music, typically played by small dance bands, and more recently by rock and blues-influenced performers, as distinguished from a modern, more commercial form strongly influenced by pop and jazz. Cf. Tejano n. and adj. and musica norteña n. [first cite 1968]

Then from Tex-Mex to Hex-Mex (or Hex Mex)!

Another book of artistic postcards, this time with posters for London Transport to the zoo in the ’20s and ’30s, featuring gorgeous stylized animals, as depicted by artists and designers of the time. Very hard indeed to pick just a few, but here I’ll reproduce three.

Background about the posters, from the Pomegranate Press site:

London Zoo: Art for London Transport Book of Postcards

The world’s first subterranean railway, the London Underground opened in 1863 and now provides three million rides daily. In 1908, Underground executive Frank Pick began seeking out the country’s best artists and designers to produce advertising posters for the expanding transit system. Pick recognized the potential of this new graphic medium, born just a decade earlier but already transforming the urban space, and the Underground became an important patron of the arts and an acknowledged leader in the field of poster publicity.

For a century, copies of every poster produced for the Underground and its affiliates were kept, and when the collection was transferred to London Transport Museum in the 1980s, it contained more than five thousand printed posters and almost one thousand original artworks. Steadily growing since then, the collection offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of a century of British graphic design. This book of postcards reproduces thirty Underground posters advertising travel to London Zoo—one of the city’s favorite public-transport destinations.

First, a wonderful playful caricature of a chameleon — a chameleon of the mind — by Oleg Zinger from 1935:

(#1)

About Zinger, from French Wikipedia (there’s an entry in German Wikipedia too, but not, apparently, in English Wikipedia):

Oleg Zinger est un peintre contemporain franco-russe né à Moscou le 3 février 1910 et mort à Nîmes le 9 janvier 1998. Son père, Alexandre Zinger, est un savant, ayant notamment rédigé quelques ouvrages sur la physique et la botanique, et sa mère, Vera Pawlova, est une actrice du théâtre d’art de Moscou.

Notamment peintre animalier, on retrouve principalement dans les œuvres d’Oleg ses goûts, pris très jeune, pour la nature et les animaux mais également son goût pour le jazz, qu’il découvrira plus tard par ses voyages en France et aux États-Unis.

Another Zinger, a spectral lemur from 1933:

(#2)

Then from another hand, Charles Paine in 1921, some penguins:

(#3)

From the London Transport Museum Shop:

Charles Paine was a versatile and prolific designer. His training started with an apprenticeship in stained glass. He also attended evening classes at Manchester School of Art, before moving to London to further his study. His time at the Royal College of Art however was interrupted by military service. During the 1920s he designed posters for the Underground Group and in the 1930s he lived and worked in Welwyn Garden City, before moving to Jersey.