Mitch: ”Where does CIDU start and ‘that’s just wrong’ end?”
Cidu Bill on May 31st 2010
Mitch: With this one I have a hard time delineating where “I’d like to correct that!” leaves off and “But I still don’t understand why he’d say that” takes over.1) The standard plural of ‘bus’ is ‘buses’. This ‘busses’ is either plain wrong or at least a disfavored alternative.
2) If this is supposed to be a song/rhyme, does he say ‘wuss’ in a way that plausibly rhymes with ‘bus’? For me it’s a pretty bad off-rhyme.
3) And as CIDU, why (besides trying for a rhyme) is he calling anyone a ‘wuss’ for destroying his mailbox? They might be vandals or hooligans or (if he’s blaming the driver) incompetents — but why ‘wusses’?
Filed in Bill Bickel, Crankshaft, Tom Batiuk, comic strips, comics, humor | 27 responses so far
George P May 31st 2010 at 11:10 pm 1
Maybe the bus hit the mailbox, because you’d think summer would be prime mailbox destroying season for high school hooligans.
As for calling them “wusses”, maybe it’s the same thought behind calling suicide bombers “cowards”.
Rammy M May 31st 2010 at 11:22 pm 2
well the song is Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out”
youtube (dot) com (slash) watch?v=OUugQoxS8_o
jump to minute 2:15
“busses” so it will read easily? or he didn’t realize
“wusses” so it would rhyme?
other than “it’s a parody of an ‘I hate school’ song, usually (as if) sung by kids”, I don’t know if there is anything else there
R
Winter Wallaby May 31st 2010 at 11:23 pm 3
4) Why does he look so cheerful about his mailbox being destroyed?
Marshal May 31st 2010 at 11:26 pm 4
The man is Mr. Keesterman. There is a running gag about how Crankshaft
destroys Keesterman’s mailbox almost daily.
It appears to be the start of Summer vacation so Keesterman is
happy that his mailbox will not be damaged for a couple of months
and so is singing a happy little song to himself. Calling Crankshaft
a wuss while doing so.
.
Kit May 31st 2010 at 11:27 pm 5
With school out Crankshaft won’t back over the mailbox again ’til the fall (yes, this is an interminable running joke). Yes he chose “wusses” because it almost rhymes with “busses.” It’s Batiuk, what do you want? Oh, and sorry Rammy, but Alice co-opted the rhyme for the song, it was around loooong before
furrykef Jun 1st 2010 at 04:30 am 6
The game SimCity 3000 chose the spelling “busses” deliberately, though with no explanation. There’s a ticker that always runs along the bottom of the game showing current events; when there are none to report, it typically shows amusing nonsense. One of them is “Your City News Ticker: Where We Report On Busses, Not Buses” (replace “Your City” with the name of your city). Funnily enough, I’m looking at a complete dump of the game’s text and it turns out that there were two unintentional uses of “buses” anyway.
Besides, a lot of spelling issues come to personal preference anyway. For a long time I wrote “judgement” instead of the preferred (for us Americans) “judgment” because it’s not pronounced “jud-guh-ment”, but I’ve gotten used to “judgment” by now. I still cannot stand “worshiped” in place of “worshipped”, though the AP Stylebook demands it… “worshiped” looks like it should rhyme with “striped”. And I cannot for the life of me decide between “gray” and “grey”. Unless you’re an editor and enforcing consistency is your job, perhaps it’s best to just embrace our idiosyncracies and move on.
I do find “wusses” and “busses” a bit of a weak rhyme, though, and destroying a mailbox isn’t the sort of behavior I’d associate with the term “wuss”.
JHGRedekop Jun 1st 2010 at 06:47 am 7
Where I come from, “wuss” rhymes perfectly with “bus”. How are you folks pronouncing it?
The song isn’t from Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” — it’s an old schoolyard rhyme that Alice Cooper appropriated for “School’s Out”, and predates old Uncle Alice by decades at least.
Catlover Jun 1st 2010 at 06:57 am 8
JHGRedkop - how about puss (as in Puss in Boots) and fuss (don’t make a fuss about that)? Where I come from wuss rhymes with puss and bus rhymes with fuss. Others I know pronounce it more like the foos of foosball. But I believe the etymology comes from pussy-wussy, with a meaning of weak, ineffectual, wimpy, ‘fraidy-cat.
George P Jun 1st 2010 at 07:06 am 9
Sean Connery said “Pussy” so it rhymes with “Lucy”, but that was a proper name.
Nicole Jun 1st 2010 at 07:27 am 10
I actually have this problem — though it is with snow plows not school buses.
I’m with Catlover .. Puss and Wuss rhyme.
mitch4 Jun 1st 2010 at 08:20 am 11
Kef, I’m with you on preferring ‘judgement’ for the same reason — just can’t hear the affricated [”soft”] g if it’s written ‘judgment’.
The traditional rationale for insisting on ‘buses’ is that ‘busses’ is from another word, meaning “kisses”. But anyway I wasn’t insisting — that’s why I said disfavored alternative instead of sticking with wrong, eh?
CIDU Bill Jun 1st 2010 at 11:04 am 12
Mitch, in the United States, “judgment” is the preferred spelling.
The last time I used “judgement” was about thirty years ago, in a story I wrote. The magazine’s editor told me I’d better change it because if if I did, the copyeditor would probably change it; and once you give a copy editor something he wants to change, there’s no telling when he’ll stop. It’s a “let sleeping dogs lie” sort of thing.
Judge Mental Jun 1st 2010 at 11:06 am 13
@Catlover - When I grew up, “wuss(y)” was always explained to me as a combination of a wimp and a puss(y), which does ultimately jibe with your definition a weak/effeminate person. Whether this is the “definitive” etymology, I don’t know. However, it was corroborated later in my life in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
Again, this doesn’t really coincide with Kiesterman’s usage. FWIW, I have noticed other slang words with specific meanings start being used, over time, as generic insults.
mitch4 Jun 1st 2010 at 11:30 am 14
CIDU Bill, thanks for pointing it out, but as it happens I’m already aware that ‘judgment’ is the preferred American spelling. In expressing my preference [and reasons] for ‘judgement’ I was sort of hopping aboard furrykef’s remarks about sometimes going with personal preferences even in the face of knowing the standard usage. And in some cases it’s helped along by being a British standard and not just a personal eccentricity.
[Though I gather for some people that’s just another red flag … “you’re an American and you’re not writing for British publication, why in the world besides sheer affectation would you use a transatlantic spelling?”.]
Bob Jun 1st 2010 at 01:01 pm 15
furrykef - I got docked a point on a lab report in college for using “grey” instead of “gray.” I’m still bitter about it a few decades later.
DPWally Jun 1st 2010 at 03:03 pm 16
I believe “busses” is a disfavored plural, as you said. It’s also the plural of “buss”, an obsolete slang for kiss, which would make the comic more confusing.
The primary wrongness of this comic is the idea that the end of the school year brings *less* mailbox destruction. With school-less kids roaming the neighborhood his mailbox will only remain standing if someone has placed dog poop in it.
paperboy Jun 1st 2010 at 05:43 pm 17
Rammy M#2- “well the song is Alice Cooper’s ‘Schools Out’ ” Actually, Cooper used the old school-kid rhyme. (”No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks”)
Cidu Bill Jun 1st 2010 at 05:56 pm 18
At the very least, the rhyme pre-dates the old Our Gang comedies.
Judge Mental Jun 2nd 2010 at 11:03 am 19
@Cidu Bill #18
I have a hard time believing that that the rhyming of “busses” and “wusses” pre-dates the Our Gang comedies.
(just kidding, I know what you meant)
Even though the “no more…” refrain predates Alice Cooper, I think his version of “Schools Out” was more of an inspiration than some of you might think. Consider the following excerpt from the song:
Well we got no class
And we got no principles
We ain’t got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes
Derek Jun 5th 2010 at 03:00 pm 20
Catlover: “Where I come from wuss rhymes with puss and bus rhymes with fuss.”
Where I come from they all rhyme. They all use the same “u” sound that’s in pull, luck and jug, as opposed to the one that’s in cup or junk. I can’t recall ever hearing any of them pronounced differently. How are other people pronouncing them?
mitch4 Jun 5th 2010 at 05:26 pm 21
Derek saith:
Really? Well, where do you come from? I can’t think of a U.S. regional accent that would pattern as you describe. Sure you didn’t type something other than you intended?
I wish I could track down that thread where someone posted some pronunciations in IPA and others asked why their “rhymes with” or “same sound as in” indicators wouldn’t do. His answer, quite crrectly I thought, was that since the comparisons offered would also be subject to regional dialect variation (and idiosyncrasy), they weren’t always going to be of much help.
Maybe resorting to IPA is not necessary, but I think it’s always great to use a key or legend of some sort. Let me suggest the semi-standard ASCII transcription shorthand that has developed on the Internet. A good presentation of it is at the World Wide Words site, at http://worldwidewords.org/pronguide.htm . (I’ll leave it to all y’alls to follow his links to sme more-complete or variant presentations if you care to — I think 2 or more links throws a post into purgatory.)
Using Quinion’s “Text” symbols, the sounds and his examples are:
U - book, put, foot
V - dug, run, strut
and to make sure we’re not talking about this one I’ll throw in
u: - boot, too, group
[Yes, potentially this still could suffer from the same problem, BUT: at the link he also shows them in IPA; and the comparison words are well-chosen to not represent too much regional variation.]
With those in hand, my pronunciations, like Catlover’s, are
U - puss, wuss
V - bus, fuss
Derek seems to be saying
U (?) - puss, wuss, busses, pull, luck, jug
V - cup, junk
(Are you sure jug and junk aren’t together?)
George P @9 says that Sean Connery would have /u:/ for Pussy, like Lucy.
JHGRedekop @7 says Where I come from, “wuss” rhymes perfectly with “bus”. I think that must then be with /V/ — I don’t think many would say “bus” as /bUs/.
Matthew Jun 5th 2010 at 09:15 pm 22
Wally, “buss” is not obsolete slang. It’s been around for over three hundred years. It’s in a poem by Herrick.
Todd Jun 6th 2010 at 03:08 am 23
Far as I can tell, I pronounce the “u” in Derek’s five words all the same. I’ve always pronounced wuss like pus, not puss (if that helps). And pussy does not rhyme with Lucy to me. I’m raised in California, with cousins from Texas and Indiana (different sides of the family).
George P Jun 6th 2010 at 03:11 am 24
“Pussy” only rhymes with “Lucy” in Goldfinger.
mitch4 Jun 6th 2010 at 08:57 am 25
Todd @23 says: Far as I can tell, I pronounce the “u” in Derek’s five words all the same.
Okay, Todd (and Derek), I’ll take you at your word. Or try to…
Derek gave two sets, actually: They all use the same “u” sound that’s in pull, luck and jug, as opposed to the one that’s in cup or junk. I can’t recall ever hearing any of them pronounced differently. How are other people pronouncing them?
Derek’s set DA: {pull, luck, jug}
Since he said “they all use the same” we should add {wuss, bus, buss} to set DA.
Derek’s set DB: {cup, junk}
My mismatch with set DA is that I use the Quinion /U/ sound for “pull” but /V/ for both {luck, jug}. Further, I don’t have a different vowel for {luck, jug} from the one in {cup, junk}.
Mitch’s set MA: {pull} also {puss, wuss, put, book, foot}
Mitch’s set MB: {luck, jug, cup, jug} also {bus, buss, pus}
Todd, you say I’ve always pronounced wuss like pus, not puss (if that helps). It does help, in that it probably shows you do use the /U/ sound somewhere (puss). I’ll call that your B set:
Todd’s set TA: = “Derek’s five words” = DA + DB = {pull, luck, jug, cup, junk}, also {wuss} mentioned, presumably also{bus, buss}
Todd’s set TB: {puss}
I differ from TA in two ways: (1) I think “pull” doesn’t belong there really, and is an accident of Derek writing too fast and you reading too fast. (2) Also — and this is simply where we started from — I wouldn’t include “wuss”, but that’s just a difference we have observed.
Do you really say “pull” like the first syllable of “pulverize”? How do you say “pullet” and “bullett” and for that matter “bull”? I would put all those except “pulverize” in with my set MA = {pull, puss, wuss, put, book, foot, pullet, bullet, bull}. I know you have “wuss” n your other set, but apart from that do you have all my MA words with the same vowel?
Derek Jun 6th 2010 at 10:47 am 26
mitch4:
I’m from Ireland. I think my pronunciation is typical here.
I would pronounce all the words in your set MA with the same vowel sound although many of my compatriots would pronounce “book” and with the /u:/ sound.
I would include “pulverize” there as well, although of course I spell it “pulverise”!
There’s a line in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Ford Prefect describes something (matter transportation I think) as “unpleasantly like being drunk”. Arthur Dent asks him “What’s unpleasant about being drunk?” and Ford replies “Ask a glass of water”. For me, this doesn’t quite work as a joke because I pronounce “drunk” (meaning “intoxicated”) differently from “drunk” (the past particple of “drink”).
mitch4 Jun 6th 2010 at 12:26 pm 27
Thanks, Derek! That clears up a lot. When I was feeling rather stumped over your description that was because I was thinking only about the main U.S. regional accents.