"You scalar implicature!"

Language Log 2024-11-29

Today's SMBC:

Mouseover title: "Oddly enough, the hard part was picking jargon NOT to use."

The AfterComic:

I'm always happy to see Linguistics singled out for praise, but in fairness, technical terminology works pretty well from whatever domain:

Exocrine secretion! Weak anisotropic reflection! Torridonian alluvium! Conjugacy-closed subgroup! Homotopical nilpotency! Simplicial foliation! Hypersoft bijection! Facticious akataphasia!

And cross-domain combinations can be even better, like "bijective alluvium".