From Le Vieux Lapin:
And still from Le Vieux Lapin, and for that matter still about bees:
Le Vieux Lapin still on a roll!
An Ewww-LOL from Reality Check:
Sunday Funnies – LOLs, November 28th, 2021
From Le Vieux Lapin:
And still from Le Vieux Lapin, and for that matter still about bees:
Le Vieux Lapin still on a roll!
An Ewww-LOL from Reality Check:
Comics I Don't Understand 
Which one is better? — It’s better when I haven’t had a pop-up hit my eye!
I’m not getting the joke with the snail.
Best I can figure is that he is refusing to adhere to the rule of describing himself in one word, being a rule breaker and all.
When I saw the Bliss in the papers last week, I thought the stick was right there at his feet. Now, I see that was just the comic’s url. My misperception was funnier.
@guero, I see your point — though I don’t know if that makes it funnier or just turns it up a notch from “they’re both a bit tired” to “listless and depressed”.
Woops, I see Martin in the signature, forgot to tag him.
Everyone — I have a couple recent Bliss panels saved up where there is no bliss and a person is just listless or sad, and not much helped by the dog or cat. Send me others that strike you that way, for a not-so-Blissful collection. We already have 11/25 and 11/27 queued up. Thanks.
@Mark M and larK, that’s how I see it too. And he does it twice!
Now, if he had said “rule-breaker” and we accepted that hyphenation as a single word, then he would not have been breaking the rule; hence would have been telling an untruth. [I put it that way only because I didn’t want to figure out whether to type lying or lieing.]
Also, while “doesn’t play by the rules” is not just one word, it is a description. But is “Is a snail” really a description, or more of an identification? And if he had made only one response, and it was “Snail” , would that have been proper under the rules, or failed since it is not a description?
In the Far Side one, that kid has one long finger.
Well, I read it as, not only does he/it break the one word rule, but also the typical word ordering rule of subject- verb-object (or is that a predicate adjective clause? It’s only been 60 years or so since I studied stuff like that.). Frankly, the last panel is superfluous.
@beckoningchasm lol yes, it must be pretty long to poke all the way thru and be noticed by the fish on the other side.
I almost wrote “sharks” but they might not be. We just have to figure they will bite him, he will pull his hand back, the water will pour thru, the hole will enlarge, the dike will be destroyed, and the land will be flooded.
@guero, I’d put it not that he’s violating anything about ordering but just omitting the subject. Which implicitly would have been “he” (or “she”) in both places, as he is making third-person descriptions of himself. As would be pretty normal, if there weren’t the one-word rule and you were just asked to “give us a phrase that describes you.”
The pop-up book one made me laugh. The only official laugh of the day. But I still The Comics Curmudgeon to go, so . . .
The Dutch only know about the boy who stuck his finger in the dike through interactions with Americans (same goes for Hans Brinker). They’ll tell you the story is silly. Any proper Dutch boy would have stuck a tulip bulb in the hole and run for help.
Well that’s just crazy talk, leaving a tulip bulb out there like that — might as well plug the hole with a thumb drive containing the wallet to all my NFTs… Couldn’t he find a couple gold coins or platinum bars to plug the hole with?
Did not realize that Hans Brinker was an American novel. Good thing it was written long after 1775 or I would have been talking about the book as being Dutch at the Candlelight Nights event at local restoration village. House our unit interprets as volunteers for the event was built in 1740 by a Dutch colonist – cabinet bed and everything. (Though everything in the house is rebuilt, the house was used as part of a “Gold Coast”, Long Island home of a brother- in- law of a Wanamaker and everything was gone from it when the village got it.)
Part of what is in my area of the house to talk about is the toys that the children received from Sinter Klaus on St. Nicholas Day, as opposed to Boxing Day (Dec 26 just in case anyone does not know) when “English” children received gifts from their parents – no Santa Claus for them yet) and a pair of strap on skates is included in the gifts laid out on a table.
I think I have mentioned that I was late in understanding the practice of giving an alternate title with OR, and figured “Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates” would be the story of somebody required to make a difficult choice.
I bet the Dutch in the Netherlands don’t know about Dutch Boy Paints either.
https://www.dutchboy.com/
“figured “Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates” would be the story of somebody required to make a difficult choice.”
a la “The Lady or the Tiger” — but with perhaps a lot less drama, no matter what the ultimate choice.
“The Lady”
or
The Tiger
…That’s some lady, rowr!
I’d choose the tiger. I’d LOVE to have a pet tiger! We’d go for walks in the park, and I’d train it to ride behind me on my motorcycle …
Tigers don’t like motorcycles; they feel too exposed. They prefer to ride inside larger, heavily armored military vehicles (so sahibs on elephants can’t shoot them). Hence the plea to “put a tiger in your tank.”
Bad-da-bing.
We had an exchange student from the Netherlands in my high school, and what she found hilarious was the term ‘going Dutch’, like on a date where both parties pay for themselves. She’d never heard of the practice, never mind it being named after her countrymen.
You should have given her a stern talking-to, as a Dutch Uncle.
The Dutch thing I believe comes from a “Dutch people are frugal” thing, not that it’s common in the Netherlands.
@Brian the Dutch and the English have been facing each other for so long (as have the English and French too of course) and one way the friction shows up is in how those national names get used in idioms by the neighbors / rivals. Idioms and stereotypes as you were pointing out, and are linked.
Taking French leave. Carrying around a French letter.
But French doors (tall windows you can step thru when open) don’t seem fueled by prejudice. Nor a French horn (even if not officially called that) nor a cor anglais.
I once read a book that was a commentary on James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” When Leopold Bloom thinks of the “French letter still in my pocket,” the commentator thought it was the letter from his mistress, written in French.
I didn’t think “French letter” was THAT obscure. After all, I knew what it was, although I had never actually used one — this was a long time ago, before Bill Baird, when they were illegal in Massachusetts.
Today I listened to some podcasts from my way-behind-current list, I heard Mingnon Fogarty (“Grammar Girl”) in an episode about terms relating to alcohol and drinking. Among them – Dutch Courage!