Nivabeff Celebrates Cinco de Mayo
In yesterday's For Better or For Worse, Meredith called Elly “Mum-mum” and not “Ma-ma”. As I said yesterday, this is much less well-developed than when Lizzie said, “Nizzie want in there” from the 03/01/2009 strip. Other than that, Lynn is doing pretty well.
Mispronouncing “dog” as “gog” is an example of consonant harmony, where the whole word is influenced by a particular sound. The pronunciation of the whole word is influenced by the presence of a particular sound in the word.
Mispronouncing Michael as Miggah is an example of context sensitive voicing, where a voiceless sound is replaced by a voiced sound.
Mispronouncing Elizabeth as Nivabeff is not quite correct.
Normally you expect to see a fricative consonant (/f/ /v/ /s/ /z/, 'sh', 'zh', 'th' or /h/) which is very hard to pronounce replaced by a stop consonant (/p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ or /g/). However we do have the weak syllable deletion which eliminated the “el” part of the name.
In other words, Lynn is doing astonishingly well with Elizabeth’s speech pattern, until she gets to the joke line, where she sacrifices her accuracy for supposed humour.
My favourite part is in the final panel where Elizabeth’s name pronunciation causes her left boob to develop to maturity. It's very freaky-looking.
Mispronouncing “dog” as “gog” is an example of consonant harmony, where the whole word is influenced by a particular sound. The pronunciation of the whole word is influenced by the presence of a particular sound in the word.
Mispronouncing Michael as Miggah is an example of context sensitive voicing, where a voiceless sound is replaced by a voiced sound.
Mispronouncing Elizabeth as Nivabeff is not quite correct.
Normally you expect to see a fricative consonant (/f/ /v/ /s/ /z/, 'sh', 'zh', 'th' or /h/) which is very hard to pronounce replaced by a stop consonant (/p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ or /g/). However we do have the weak syllable deletion which eliminated the “el” part of the name.
In other words, Lynn is doing astonishingly well with Elizabeth’s speech pattern, until she gets to the joke line, where she sacrifices her accuracy for supposed humour.
My favourite part is in the final panel where Elizabeth’s name pronunciation causes her left boob to develop to maturity. It's very freaky-looking.
posted by howard at 10:55 PM
11 Comments:
But why do adults call her "Nizzie"? Did Micheal at some point and they thought it so genius that Elly started too? Which reminds me is Elly's birth name really "Elly"?
(Also, my verification word is: 'babless'. Heh.)
When Mike brings Deanna home to meet his parents for the first time after they've become a couple, Elly babbles to Deanna that she was named for her grandmother, Elizabeth, and Phil for their aunt Phyllis (who's still in England), but it's only in Lynn's writings about the strip that she explains that "Elly" isn't short for anything. IRL, Elly was a childhood friend of Lynn's who died from a brain tumour.
You've started calling Liz "Meredith." The reload is getting to you! (See your first paragraph today and your second paragraph yesterday.)
What I don't get is Elly's reaction in the last panel. Shouldn't she be delighted instead of gobsmacked? And also, Liz referring to herself as "me" seems very early.
But why do adults call her "Nizzie"? Did Micheal at some point and they thought it so genius that Elly started too? Which reminds me is Elly's birth name really "Elly"?Liz in the early strips called herself "Nizzie"; I don't remember adults saying that, but that could just be my memory failing me.
Elly's birth name is indeed "Elly."
In other words, Lynn is doing astonishingly well with Elizabeth’s speech pattern, until she gets to the joke line, where she sacrifices her accuracy for supposed humour.At least she's consistent; when accuracy and an alleged joke collide, accuracy is the thing sacrificed.
D'oh! NoNicky, I now realize that we saw Elly saying "Nizzie sittum on pottie" last week. Yeah, I agree it's strange that Elly would say that. Even when my son couldn't pronounce his own name, I didn't replicate his pronunciation.
But Nivabeff is exactly what April called Elizabeth when April was learning to talk!
The March 1, “Elly in the bath” strip was the only one in the reprints where Elizabeth called herself Nizzie. It is also her most verbal strip. Until this storyline, she just said “Ma-ma” and did raspberries at Michael. Elly refers to her as Liz, Lizzie or Elizabeth throughout the reprints until we got to the May 1 babytalk strip. The use of Nizzie there, tells us that Elizabeth has already called herself Nizzie and Elly is imitating her to communicate with her. My kids used to refer to their step-grandfather as “Gramma Bo”, and I still like saying that, even though my kids have long since stopped doing that.
As Muzition pointed out, Nivabeff is an April-ism. Maybe Lynn thinks today’s strip is supposed to represent the first time Elizabeth said her own name. If this were aprilp_katje’s FOOBAR strip, it would an odd moment where Elly would realize that little Nizzie remembers little Aypo. As it is, it is just another strip in the canon of “Lynn Johnston does a strip like the reprint strips, showing she has reprinted without reading them”.
aprilp_katje,
You've started calling Liz "Meredith." The reload is getting to you! (See your first paragraph today and your second paragraph yesterday.)Argh!! Why did I do that? Too many strips where Lynn borrows old Meredith jokes for Elizabeth?
Argh!! Why did I do that? Too many strips where Lynn borrows old Meredith jokes for Elizabeth?Maybe this comes from the monthly-letter idea of crazy-Elly mistaking Meredith for young Nizzie. ;)
I'd also noticed "Nivabeff" as an Aypoism rather than a Nizzie-ism.
Okay. Got it. Elly (who is simply Elly) calls Lizzie - Nizzie because Ni.. Lizzie did it first.
And now Lizzie calls herself Nizabef because in the future April will.
That's just... well, I don't know.
But, thanks for everyone answering my questions! :)
It was really annoying when Michael used to go "ma!" Also the sock jokes weren't funny. And Elizabeth in a lot of 80's comics said "Nizzie want this" "Nizzie want that".
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