Tag / 9 Chickweed Lane

by Kilby

Age of Consent

Mark H. submitted this 9CWL quite a while ago(+), commenting: “Looks like the visuals in the first two frames are out of sequence. What woman wraps a towel around her head before going into the shower?“

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I agree that it does look odd, but I think the “out/in/out” sequence is necessary to make the “dash” effect work in the final panel. It’s really just that towel (on her head) that seems out of place.

P.S. (+) This strip is from August, but may have been overlooked amidst all the “swimming“, “milkshake“, and “accelerated maturation” issues we have seen in recent weeks. After all, they are all basically the same topic (the same one that we did not see just this past Wednesday, in “Hägar the Enabler“).

However, as long as we are on that subject, Mark H. also submitted the 9CWL below as an Arlo, commenting: “Given that they’ve never been intimate, it’s not clear how she knows how big his macadamias are….”

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Perhaps she was just estimating their diameter from the effectiveness of his testosterone level on her…

by Kilby

Germification

CIDU frequently presents holiday-based material, but virtually all of the holidays we have ever celebrated so far have been American, even if a few of them (such as New Year’s Eve and Halloween) are also celebrated outside of North America. The following collection is presented in recognition of German Unification Day, which just happened to land on October 3rd (in 1990), and has been celebrated on that day ever since.

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Coverly put a “T” in front of the first “CH”, but neglected to do the same for the second, which would have made the pronunciation clearer, but it might have annoyed the syndicate’s censors.

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During my first stay in Germany (over 35 years ago), once I had begun to understand and speak a little of the language, I was frequently astonished (and/or embarrassed) by the linguistic abilities of German toddlers, which were often better than my own.

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Here’s a classic riddle for students beginning to learn the language:
Q – “What does a German parakeet say?“
A – (in a deep voice): “Billig! Billig!” (meaning “cheap”, of course)

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As unlikely as it may seem, Hogan’s Heroes wasn’t just translated into German, they actually did it twice, because the first version didn’t get good enough ratings. The scriptwriters for the newer version invented details and even (unseen) characters not found in the original shows, and the dialog (of the “Germans”) was changed from standard (“Hochdeutsch“) pronunciation to more comical (Bavarian and Saxon) dialects.

The American characters speak normal German in the translation, except for “Newkirk” (Richard Dawson’s character), who was changed from British to being a stutterer, which was both unnecessary and is absolutely unwatchable (at least for anyone who is familiar with the original show). I don’t remember whether LeBeau was synchronized into German with a French accent.

P.S. Keith Knight has drawn at least a dozen strips based on interactions with his (German) wife; there are simply too many of them to include them all here. Perhaps later, in a separate “linguistic” post.

by zbicyclist

Will this go Swimmingly?

Usual John, Unca $crooge, and Dirk the Daring all sent this in, Dirk noting: “Normally this strip is just about sex, repetitive, but easy to understand. But this one I don’t get, what are they laughing at? Am I missing something obvious?”

It’s 9 Chickweed Lane, so it’s almost certainly about sex, but I don’t get it, either. Here’s the previous two days in this story line:

The following day (August 31, 2024) switched characters entirely, and does not help.

by EditorM

These are not the ginks you’re looking for

McEldowney’s meaning for gink must be quite different from the one I am most familiar with!

The Urban Dictionary of course gives some dozen unrelated entries of varying plausibility, some of which could work in this cartoon context. (But none of which are exactly mine.) The slang section of dictionary.com is more sober, but the main American entry could work with the cartoon:

noun Slang: Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive.

a person; fellow.

Is that all there is to it? Or do you see a better fit for one of the other definitions?

by EditorM

Because it’s afraid of her?

Why did the piano run away? (If that’s what happened.)

Thanks to Brian in STL for also sending this in, and also providing this other pianistic scene:

Brian’s remarks on this one were “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, and there are no comments on the strip to help. Amos often serves as her page-turner, but seems to have flung the music book across the room. Did he have some sort of convulsion or horrible miscalculation?”

Hey, maybe the piano remembers this or similar scenes, and has fled once he sees who the approaching performer is…

POSTSCRIPT

Thursday’s strip looks like it might be intended as something of a follow-up.

Now that she’s caught up with it, she prepares to attack … and plays a single note, as quietly as possible — marked 5p and with the visual correlative of the miniaturized staff.