E G O S P E W

My coining of Nyertoon [pronounced NYE-er-toon, pretty much the way it’s spelled] leads me to put this post under Llewellynguistics. It means New Yorker Cartoon, get it?

I was trying to come up with a blend of “cartoon” and some animal, preferably doggie hybrid style (whoa, that doesn’t sound right). A lot of New Yorker cartoons are about animals, especially dogs, and I thought they should have their own identifying genre name. I agonized over rhymenocerous then came up with cartoodle, but of course they’re already taken (the former by the delightfully hilarious and talented Conchords, the latter by a, shall we say, gentler wit). (Note to self: All your great ideas will always have already been come up with. Don’t even try. The fact that “Nyertoon” has zero Google hits just means that it sucks.)

So the point is that I want you all to vote for a very funny car– er, Nyertoon and caption combo in the Caption Contest. I have reproduced the picture and caption here (without asking), but full credit goes to the New Yorker magazine, the artist (Carolita Johnson) and the captioner (Peter Schooff). You can vote for it here through January 20, 2008.