Tintin Forums

edcharlesadams
accepted definition
Mind you, the wiki definition does include homographic puns (see above)......

Neither does the name Tortilla actually explain anything of consequence (knowing that it means 'omlette' does not help advance the plot - it is purely a linguistic aside).

Mind you, Herge's pun is reverse: it says omelette means tortilla, hence the thief's name 'Tortilla', a major clue to the mystery of the fetish......
(see answer above)

Anyway, congratulations to labrador road 26!...

OK, well done yamilah for congratulating labrador road with good grace. As you must have posted your above message at the same time as I posted my last message (ie not in response to it), my suggestion that you should offer labrador such congratulations was evidently not needed, and my final opinion that you'd never write anything so straightforward was unjust in that particular case. Sorry.

But the rest of my tirade has some validity, I think - namely the suggestions that you should stick to clear simple English, and that you should simply admit you might be wrong sometimes. Whenever I get drawn into one of your threads I usually end up feeling like Captain Haddock after he's had a conversation with Jolyon Wagg, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Blue blistering barnacles.

Balthazar
you should stick to clear simple English

I'm a trifle baffled, for the meaning of 'pun' in other threads was never contested before that 'tortilla' question...

To be precise, I should have mentioned this pun was homographic, but then we might well have read some comment about 'more pseudo-intellectual psychobabble'...

yamilah
the meaning of 'pun' in other threads was never contested before that 'tortilla' question...
Are you saying that you've similarly misused the word pun in several of your previous threads and that no one's ever complained before? If so, the reason no one's ever complained before might not be because the erroneous uses weren't spotted, but because no one had the energy to tackle you on them! Your prose tends to be so littered with meaningless misuses of words (erstwhile and amplification are just two of your favourites that spring to mind) that the task of trying to correct them all would be daunting. And whenever any member does patiently attempt to get you to rephrase yourself more simply and correctly, you usually refuse to engage with them and tend to hide behind yet more oblique and obscure phraseology. Or you asterisk your meaningless words to footnotes saying "search for related threads" which only lead the poor reader to your earlier equally-meaningless uses of the same word.

yamilah
I should have mentioned this pun was homographic, but then we might well have read something about 'more pseudo-intellectual psychobabble'...
You said it! You know that I don't know what homographic means, and I suspect that you probably don't know either (and that you're probably misusing it anyway), so why use the word at all!? It's almost as if you're afraid that if you start using words that people understand, everyone will be able to see that the wheels are coming off your arguments - that's if your arguments ever had wheels in the first place.

You've got me ranting again, thundering typhoons. And I'm normally quite a placid person. I'd better finish this post with a smiley to calm myself down. :-)

Balthazar
Thanks for your remarks
The asterisks are meant to help the interested newcomers, as I can't just start the whole story again for them. But maybe you are just not interested in the 'unique world'?

By Googling, you'll find 'erstwhile' does belong to the English language; is it outdated? then please admit such a subtlety is not evident for those who don't have your daily practice in English...
erstwhile: former, once, onetime, quondam, sometime
see http://www.wordreference.com/definition/erstwhile

Concerning 'homographic', I meant homograph. Sorry about that little mistake which shouldn't hinder much the understanding, though...
homograph: 'two words are homographs if they are spelled the same way but differ in meaning (e.g. fair)'
see http://www.wordreference.com/definition/homograph

About amplifications, please search also for amplified.
In the context, such terms refer to a special writing technique initially developed by precursor Raymond Roussel, a method later developed by the Oulipo to such a point that it enables kind of simple secret writing in literature (e.g. the S+7 constraint), a rule already mentioned in January and October on this site.

yamilah
The asterisks are meant to help the interested newcomers, as I can't just start the whole story again for them. But maybe you are just not interested in the 'unique world'?
I’m afraid that yet again you have fallen back on the tactic of suggesting those who do not agree with you do not have any interest in what you say; that is both a weak stratagem to employ, as it is discourteous to the people who have tried to follow your often convoluted and seldom straightforward take on the books, and patently wrong, as you have yet to show that there is any equation between interest and agreement with you.

While I might suggest that Balthazar has been a trifle short with you, I would put that down to genuine frustration with your often oblique style of posting; as you have (and correct me if I am wrong) never responded to my request for a a clear, unambiguous statement of your thesis about Hergé and his work, I cannot see this frustration being aleviated, asterisk or no asterisks (and believe me, they are now myriad throughout your postings, so I am not sure anyone could navigate them successfully).

yamilah
homograph: 'two words are homographs if they are spelled the same way but differ in meaning (e.g. fair)'
I did actually know this when I posted before, and I still maintain that the examples you gave at the start of the thread are not puns, homographic or otherwise…

Well, this was strange I get a point for answering a question I didn't understood. I was also thinking about the man pointing at the birds to make Tintin understand Bird brothers in Unicorn and the stolen fire engine garage key in Black Island. I certainly didn't understand Yamilahs answer about Tortilla/Omelette. I'm sort of all confused about this, but since I sort of got it right I'll post a new question.

Strangest thing is that I believed erstwhile meant famous when I read some of Yamilahs earlier posts about a famous poet or something, guess I was all wrong.

To answer your points, yamilah -

Re the asterisk system: OK, I accept they're meant to be helpful and are meant to take us relative newcomers back to the threads where you lay out the basics of your 'unique world'/rebus/hidden-message theory, but searching for related threads with these words doesn't usually do this. A search of the forums for one of your asterisked words usually just takes one to a similary unexplained usage. A constructive suggestion: perhaps if instead of all these asterisks you just made a habit of giving a URL link to the thread where you first expounded the very basics of your theory at its most simple, that'd be more useful for newcomers to your threads.

Re "erstwhile": yes it's a proper word, albeit an archaic one. I don't mind you using archaic words, but I think erstwhile may not quite make sense in the contexts in which you tend to use it.

Re "amplifications/amplified": thanks for explaining that these terms refer to this secret writing system. But why was it decided to refer to this system of secret writing by the term "amplification", when amplification already means something completely different in English? Or is the confusion this will inevitably cause part of the secret writing system itself!?

Re homograph: thanks, your definition is very clearly put, and I can see that "fair" is a good example of a homograph. And in spite of your own recent doubts about the correctness of your word "homographic", I think that a play on the word "fair" could indeed be described as "homographic pun" in the right context. But I can't see how translating Gazza Ladra to thieving mapie, or translating omlette to tortilla are examples of homographs at all. So (to go back to your thought of a few posts ago about how you might have phrased your question better),even if you had mentioned in your question that this pun was homographic (or even if you'd just asked us to look for a homograph), your question (and answer) would have been no less nonsensical. Translating a word from one language to another just isn't an example of a homograph (for exactly the same reasons that it isn't an example of any other kind of pun).

Re your comment: "But maybe you are just not interested in the 'unique world'?"
Well, I see that jock 123 has just posted whilst I've been typing this post, and he's put his finger on it. (He's also right that my frustration has led me to be a trifle short with you, for which I apologize. I'll try to leave the bile out of my critiques of your quiz questions and theories in future!)

Balthazar
think erstwhile may not quite make sense in the contexts in which you tend to use it.
What about erstwhile artist = artist of the old time?

amplification already means something completely different in English?
please see §2 line 5 on http://www.almaleh.com/roussel.htm

I can't see how translating Gazza Ladra to thieving mapie, or translating omlette to tortilla are examples of homographs at all.
I never said the magpie one was made of homographs.
Omelette = tortilla, is homograph with 'Tortilla' -the thief's name, as explained earlier.

my frustration has led me to be a trifle short with you, for which I apologize.
Thanks. The best advice I can give you is to take plenty of personal notes about the crossmatchings you find in Tintin, and to spend a trifle less time and energy about someone's 'nonsensical' comments!

yamilah
What about erstwhile artist = artist of the old time?
According to my dictionary, erstwhile is an adjective meaning former or previous (or it can be an archaic adverb meaning formerly). So I think "erstwhile artist" would mean "former artist" - ie someone who used to be an artist but now does something else - rather than an artist from former times. Hope that helps.


yamilah
tortilla, homograph with 'Tortilla'
No! Sorry, I can see how you might clutch at that straw, but I don't think someone's name being the same as a word counts as a homograph any more than it counts as a pun (see my Mr Cheese example in my earliest post to this thread). Someone's name being the same as a word doesn't count as a second meaning in the same way that "fair" (your good example of a homograph) has two meanings. If Mr Tortilla's name has any word-based derivation, it's probably the same word as the first meaning - ie that his ancestors made omlettes for a living. I'll admit that if you can find evidence that Spanish people called Tortilla were originally named after something quite different in meaning from an omlette (eg Tortilla being a type of castle or farm or an ancient word for fisherman etc) then you might have a case for claiming there's a homograph somewhere in your answer.

In any case, there's definitely no homograph in the example you used in your question - the Gazza Ladra translation. Unless, of course, it's Hergé's prophetic pun on "The lad Gazza, Paul Gascoigne, who by a neat coincidence did play for a team nicknamed "The Magpies". But we're back to post-Hergé-era footballers again. (See the Prof Cantonneau thread.)

yamilah
The best advice I can give you is to take plenty of personal notes about the crossmatchings you find in Tintin...
Steady on! I was apologizing for my tone, not signing up as a disciple to the Cult of the Believers of Yamilah's Theory! ;-)


yamilah
...rather than loosing energy and time with someone's 'nonsensical' comments.
That is good advice though!