… Mr. Hillburn drew this panel, went to double-check the spelling, realized it was turmeric, cursed loudly, and then decided he didn’t have time to draw something else.
Oh, and “1990 called…”
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Comics I Don't Understand 
I’m tapping my toe, waiting for someone to explain both the comic and Bill’s comment. Maybe I just need some lunch.
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Check the Schwarzenegger tumor meme.
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Ed, it’s a reference to the film Kindergaten Cop, which includes this scene.
Bill speculates that Hillburn thought it was tumeric.
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Proposed sequels:
Marching Band Cop: “It’s not a tuba”
Fishmonger Cop: “It’s not a tuna”
Historical Cop: “It’s not a Tudor”
University Cop: “It’s not a tutor”
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Up until a couple of years ago I also thought it was “tumeric.” We were ordering some spices online and my wife said we needed “tumeric,” and I couldn’t find it in the search. Finally I just scanned through all the “t” spices and found it.
“Did you know it’s actually turmeric,” I asked her.
“Really, since when?”
“Apparently always.”
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Olivier and Pete: Thank you.
Bill: Nowadays, it seems to be the spice of (online) life, like the açaí berry.
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What does it matter how it’s spelled? The way it’s pronounced makes it a valid pun.
… but I don’t think its either musky or earthy…
And I don’t see why this would be a particulary unwanted sequel. It’d be just as well to just say it is a sequel– no need to deride it.
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CIDU Bill: Up until a few minutes ago, I also thought it was “tumeric.”
Apparently we’re not alone: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-pronounce-turmeric_n_584eba41e4b0bd9c3dfd8091
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Because TUmeric sounds enough like Tumor to make a passable joke: TURmeric isn’t just spelled differently, but it’s pronounced differently.
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Winter, I really suspect the Mandela Effect is involved here.
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Pete: Fishmongercop for the win, since they filmed both (parts of) Kindergarten Cop and the Yum-Yum-Bumblebee-Bumblebee-Tuna commercial in Astoria, Oregon…
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Not to start a whole prescriptive vs. descriptive debate, but Merriam-Webster says that’s it’s spelled with an “r,” but can be pronounced in a way to make puns with “tumor”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turmeric
tur·mer·ic | \ ˈtər-mə-rik also ˈtü-mə- or ˈtyü- \
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What the heck is “a tumeric” or “a turmeric”? “Tastes like ketchup.” “It’s not a ketchup.” ???
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>Because TUmeric sounds enough like Tumor to make a passable joke: TURmeric isn’t just spelled differently, but it’s pronounced differently.
If you *never* noticed they can’t be pronounced *that* differently…
I don’t see how you can go your *entire* life thinking it was pronounced “tumeric” and when you find out it isn’t declare it *can’t* be a pun.
Besides…. if someone pronounced Tumor as Termer with a brooklyn accent you could still make a pun.
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I got’s a big jr of turmeric I can’t use because the 2 times I did, my wife got sick.
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Interesting. I have always been unsure of the pronunciation, but it doesn’t involve the ‘R’. I was just uncertain about whether to stress the first or second syllable.
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But either way, not “too,” sounding like “tumor.”
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Can I play?
Farmer Cop: “It’s not a tuber.”
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Woozy, aren’t there words you know yet have never actually heard pronounced?
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@ B.A. – That would have been a better joke for this panel. Not only would “tuber” still work with “chef”, but it fits better with the “earthy” and “musky” in the dialog as written.
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Woozy, you’ve never actually met anybody from Brooklyn, have you?
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Oddly enough, Schwarzenegger doesn’t even pronounce “tumor” correctly…
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For the record, too-mer-ick is a perfectly valid pronunciation
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-pronounce-turmeric_n_584eba41e4b0bd9c3dfd8091
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Here’s a doubly appropriate entry in my quotes file. Bill’s comment reminded me of it, and, as it turns out, it’s from a comic:
People who mostly read books will mispronounce words occasionally. People who mostly watch TV and movies are more likely to misspell them. – Jef Mallett in Frazz
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And a similar, anonymous one:
Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.
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So true, Arthur. For many years, I thought “misled” was “MY-zld.”
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@ Arthur – Good in theory, difficult in practice: At a party back in high school, one guy pronounced “façade” with a hard “c” sound (“fahkahd“), and everyone laughed. Nobody doubted his intelligence, it was precisely the fact that he was one of the most literate kids in the entire group that made it so funny. Luckily, he took it in stride, and was equally amused, if a little embarrassed.
P.S. Here’s the Frazz strip you quoted:
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I think that the “r” in “turmeric” is subtle enough that it works as a “turmeric”/”tumor” joke. Note that plenty of us forget the “r” when we write it, anyway — the “r” blends into the “m”. “-urm-” and “-um-” are very similar when pronounced at speed.
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B.A., just because very few people in Brooklyn have the classic Brooklyn accent nowadays, doesn’t mean the Brooklyn accent isn’t still a thing.
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