whoever the hell she is

[freckles_and_doubt]

Today's amusing billboard: LEE-ANN SNOGS A BOYTJIE!! I don't know who the hell Lee-Ann is, but I'm very amused by the language choice of the headline. For a start, "snog" is unabashed Brit slang while "boytjie" is very much a South-Africanism; the wide lexical range creates a sort of airy, unresolved bounce between contexts. The use of the diminutive (often an endearment) is playful, denoting an affectionate intimacy with Lee-Ann, but it also diminishes the significance of the partner, clearly a negligible quantity, to allow the focus to remain firmly on Lee-Ann herself (whoever the hell she is). More than this, the language (and multiple exclamation points) contributes to the mere fact of the billboard to suggest, on the "man bites dog" principle, that it's somehow outrageous for Lee-Ann (whoever the hell she is) to snog a boy: I was left with a vague suspicion that she's actually a lesbian. Alternatively, the "boytjie" bit could also imply that she's an older woman shamelessly grabbing a much younger man.

A quick google, of course, absolutely deflates this lovely tension and implication: Lee-Ann is presumably Lee-Ann Liebenberg, a fairly minor South African model/celebrity, and she's found a new boyfriend indecently quickly after a break-up. This is one of those stories where the subject matter is infinitely less interesting than the linguistic play in its headline. Sigh.

In other news, have found the solution to Supernatural freaking me the hell out. Knitting. Another twelve rows on the Ravenclaw scarf while flinching away from ghosts, demons and hellhounds. Still a Sam girl, but Dean is growing on me.

Comments

[stringgeek.livejournal.com]

I have to say I find it fascinating that the content of your billboards changes so frequently. Here, they're generally just huge ads for businesses, and once they're up, they stay there pretty much forever. There's nothing of linguistic interest to them at all!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

well, I'm probably misusing the word "billboard" - they're small, A3 sized cardboard boards on lamp posts and what have you, and every day a small army of workers sticks up a different paper headline, three or four headlines per major newspaper. They're definitely billboards in the classic sense of boards to which bills are stuck, although not the giant ones with glitzy artwork. We also have those :>. You'd be surprised at how much linguistic interest the big ones do offer, too - anywhere you have a short, punchy idea to express leads inevitably to word play. The De Beers diamond ones out by Canal Walk are particularly fun.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I was surprised to find they're such a South African phenomenon, none of those up here. (Except a few propped up beside the Evening Standard kiosks - but none on lampposts.) I rather miss them.

Best ever of course was the M&G's "Hefer: Blah fokken blah". I wasn't even in the country at the time and wouldn't have believed it, except a Loyal Friend actually managed to snaffle one for me.

scroob

[mwotn.livejournal.com]

Makes a change from the little daily headline stand thingies we have here... slightly more interesting headlines as well!

On other exciting business, the Queen visited where I live today. The first we knew of this was a load of coppers coming down the street on motorbikes, then a very swish Bentley passing us. Somehow anticlimatic.

~mwotn~