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No. 84: Language, boys, language!

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Language, boys, language!

First | Previous | 2016-08-31 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/pomh/?comic=84

Strip by: Ian Boreham

title: Selective School Taunts

{Two boys at a selective school are insulting each other.}

Tall skinny boy: Your face is a noun

Heavy boy: Oh, yeah? Well, your Mum is a mass noun!

Tall skinny boy: Your Mum is a compound noun!

Heavy boy: Your Mum’s butt is a concrete noun!

Tall skinny boy: Your Mom’s boyfriends are countable nouns, and plural - very plural!

Heavy boy: Well, your sister’s a verb, and she wants to conjugate with me! Present continuous!

Tall skinny boy: Ha! Coming from a boy whose “girlfriends” are all subjunctive! Betcha don’t even know what a copula is!

Heavy boy: Oh, man, you think you’re so perfect. Your face is gonna be pluperfect after this!

{The tall skinny boy is on the ground, hair and glasses in disarray, with the heavy boy sitting on him, punching the tall boy in the face with his own hand.}

Heavy boy: Stop being a reflexive pronoun! Stop being a reflexive pronoun!

The author writes:

The idea for this strip was suggested to me by other members of the Irregulars.

In case it isn't obvious, "Mum" = "Mom". I normally use Australian English by default, but I almost used "Mom" this time, since "your Mom"-style trash talk seems more common in America than here. At least, I don't remember ever encountering it as a kid, but things may have changed. Mind you, according to the Wikipedia page on "Maternal insult", even Shakespeare used "yo Mama" jokes.

Wikipedia seems to think that the term "selective school" is widely understood, but just in case: a selective school is a school that takes students on the basis of merit; in particular, academic merit. But apparently not on the basis of good behaviour. Maybe the entrance test included a section on Shakespeare, giving these two boys an advantage.

Drawn in Krita and Inkscape.