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“‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.”
On and on like that for several verses, and in Through the Looking Glass Carroll includes an entire scene where Humpty Dumpty painstakingly walks Alice through the meanings of the words she doesn’t comprehend, even though his explanations sometimes aren’t precisely helpful.“It’s called “wabe” you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it —’.”
That clears everything up, doesn’t it? But you know, it’s still quite possible to get the gist of Jabberwocky without knowing what everything means. It was fun for me to read as a kid, and as an adult it’s still fun, not to mention a reminder to me that words can be rather arbitrary things. Carroll may have gone way out there, but language is an ever evolving project, and today’s nonsense may be tomorrow’s triple word score in Scrabble. Every year the Oxford English Dictionary inducts new words into its lexicon, such as “podcast”, “selfie”, and “frenemy”. English in particular seems to love such additions and provide room for them, making it at once perhaps the messiest language in the world and the most flexible. Anyhow, I’m jabbering (wockily?) about all this because this week’s comic debuts a little concoction of my own. There I was, struggling to come up with something suitably bizarre to use as the title of the leader (or at least one of the leaders) of the Huachucas. “Bruja” would have worked, I suppose, but… it was missing something, especially considering some of the background elements I had in mind. And then it hit me in a flash. Here’s a lady who is both “witch” and “boss”, right? Even though the Huachucas are not meant to be entirely Mexican in origin or current roster, if the Spanish words for witch and boss combined in unholy union, you’d get a new word that rolled right off the tongue: Brujefe. Suck it, English, you’re not the only language that can do portmanteaus! Now Dawn expressed concern about me doing something like this outside the scope of my native tongue, but, eh, if it doesn’t actually make sense in Spanish I invoke rule of awesome, particularly since, as previously discussed, the Huachucas are not strictly Mexican. Interestingly enough I did poke at “jefe” just to see if the feminine version would be said “la jefe” or “la jefa”, and according to at least one source it can vary depending where you are and who you’re addressing, and in fact it’s suggested that nowadays you should default to masculine form with feminine prefix if you want to use the safer choice. I probably would have gone with Brujefe rather than Brujefa anyhow since jefe is the more instantly recognized word, but it was nice to have some backup as I gyre and gimble. The best nonsense words are the ones that not only fill a necessary niche, but sound like they should’ve been there all along.
12 thoughts on “540 – Trick Hello”
Scarsdale
Called it, she figured he’d do this, if by choice or by zombie voodoo. I’m sure the “friendlier” questioning will start soon, if she doesn’t just kill him out-right. Or just add him to the herd.
Crazyman
Gotcha!
Zombatar
This turn of events is a surprise only to Eustace. And, maybe, Eustace’s subconscious. After all, this way he doesn’t have to actually risk actually attacking Suzie, which gives him a greater chance of survival than actually attacking her. I wonder what he was promised/threatened with?
ConcordBob
Not to nit-pick, but since sights are on target, finger should be on the trigger. Especially this close.
The usual rule is “keep finger straight and off trigger until sights are on target”.
Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)
Not to nit-pick, but since that was current philosophies regarding trigger discipline have evolved.
Of course, it will depend on who you get/got your training from.
Experiments have determined that the fraction of a second to go from finger off the trigger to finger firing when appropriate is insignificant, and the risk of firing unintended is greatly reduced.
Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)
I did the google thing and I believe I saw how you reached this conclusion … but there are two parts to it – One should not omit the second part.
“Trigger Finger Discipline: · The practice of keeping your finger “off the trigger” until your sights are on target AND YOU ARE READY TO DISCHARGE THE FIREARM.” (Caps are my own)
Crazyman
She wants him alive so she can question him; otherwise, he’d already be dead.
ConcordBob
Good discussion on trigger discipline!
His skin is very pale / gray. Is this malnourishment, or has he been poisoned with a mind-control drug? I would have to go back and look a t all various of skin tone.
TKG
On a prior page we discussed what he’s likely got running in his system. I suggested that it’s probably Borrochero (Brugmansia arbora) which is already used by Colombian cartels to eradicate the free will of their victims.
ConcordBob
Oh, the gray is just the dim light. Here is McCarthy eating dinner, and has the typical white dude flesh tone.
https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/comic/531-inquisitional-etiquette/
Dawn
Yeah, I was trying to show that it was dark. But went with the old Hollywood method of adding a blue grey tint over everything.
Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)
Now can we satisfy my curiosity? Colt, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, or other timeline variant?