Once upon a time, the funnies were filled with funny words.
Of course, if you say any word enough times, it begins to sound completely ridiculous.
Try it. Pick a word at random, then say it about twenty times.
Shirt.
Shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt.
Pretty silly, eh?
Given that you can take almost any regular, everyday word and render it laughable, imagine creating your own silly words... and having them burned into the consciousness of millions of people over a long period of time. That’s the legacy of the great comic strips of the past.
Zippy, 28 December 2006. ©2006 King Features Syndicate. [Click to embiggen.]
Bill Griffith’s Zippy may very well be the finest meta-comic strip out there. Above, Griffith reminisces about the great nonsense words and phrases the comics have contributed to the popular culture. How many of them do you remember?
Arnold Zwicky, in a post from early 2007, provides the backstory for the words in Griffith’s strip. You may be surprised to learn that the use of the word “Jeep” in Elzie Segar’s immortal Thimble Theatre strip (birthplace of Popeye and his assorted hangers-on) predated its use to describe the G.P. (General Purpose) vehicle of WWII.
One of the great coiners of nonsense phrases was the late Bill Holman, creator of Smokey Stover. Holman popularized the word “Foo” (see if you can count how many times it appears in the strip below) - a word that was picked up in WWII and used to describe mysterious aerial phenomena or UFO sightings (“foo fighters”).
Smokey Stover. ©1941 News Syndicate Co., Inc. [Click to embiggen.]
Notary Sojac. 1506 Nix Nix. Those nutty phrases flew from Holman’s prolific, pun-packed pen. Finding them buried in a Sunday Smokey Stover comics page was one of the small joys of childhood for me.
What dopey Comical Catchwords do you remember?
Of course, if you say any word enough times, it begins to sound completely ridiculous.
Try it. Pick a word at random, then say it about twenty times.
Shirt.
Shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt shirt.
Pretty silly, eh?
Given that you can take almost any regular, everyday word and render it laughable, imagine creating your own silly words... and having them burned into the consciousness of millions of people over a long period of time. That’s the legacy of the great comic strips of the past.
Zippy, 28 December 2006. ©2006 King Features Syndicate. [Click to embiggen.]
Bill Griffith’s Zippy may very well be the finest meta-comic strip out there. Above, Griffith reminisces about the great nonsense words and phrases the comics have contributed to the popular culture. How many of them do you remember?
Arnold Zwicky, in a post from early 2007, provides the backstory for the words in Griffith’s strip. You may be surprised to learn that the use of the word “Jeep” in Elzie Segar’s immortal Thimble Theatre strip (birthplace of Popeye and his assorted hangers-on) predated its use to describe the G.P. (General Purpose) vehicle of WWII.
One of the great coiners of nonsense phrases was the late Bill Holman, creator of Smokey Stover. Holman popularized the word “Foo” (see if you can count how many times it appears in the strip below) - a word that was picked up in WWII and used to describe mysterious aerial phenomena or UFO sightings (“foo fighters”).
Smokey Stover. ©1941 News Syndicate Co., Inc. [Click to embiggen.]
Notary Sojac. 1506 Nix Nix. Those nutty phrases flew from Holman’s prolific, pun-packed pen. Finding them buried in a Sunday Smokey Stover comics page was one of the small joys of childhood for me.
What dopey Comical Catchwords do you remember?
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