Paul Szep by Paul Szep
- March 22, 2009
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Mike Thompson by Mike ThompsonAbout Paul Szep
"I think cartoonists should be like burrs under the saddle of some egomaniac, kind of gnawing away every day," says two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Szep. "I think the public likes cartoons because it gives them a vicarious pleasure that they normally can't get in any other way."
© 2009 Creators Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (35) Jump to Comments Form
LLeRay
said,
8 months ago
Bashing corporations is not new. Remember the Enron/Arthur Anderson debacle?
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020710
Singess said, 8 months ago
“Who’s” is incorrect–should be “whose”. No wonder people have trouble learning English.
ewennick said, 8 months ago
Singess - I think she’s saying “the husband of You-Know-Who,” rather than “whose husband” … therefore it’s correct as written.
acellist
said,
8 months ago
USAGE A common written mistake is to confuse who’s with whose. The form who’s represents a contraction of ‘who is’ or ‘who has’:: who’s going to feed the dog?; | I wonder who’s left the light on again? The word whose is a possessive pronoun or adjective: | whose is this?; | whose turn is it?
curiosity1 said, 8 months ago
Yes, acellist, that is true. But, I agree with ewennick here that Szep is saying “You-Know-Who“‘s where “You-Know-Who” is acting like a name or title, and is referring to his or her husband.
Note that “You Know Who” is italicized in the caption, just as “You Know What” is.
richgrise said, 8 months ago
Whose, you illiterate dingbat.
Thanks,
Rich
WillBerry said, 8 months ago
curiosity1 is CORRECT! For those of you who are confused by the use of contractions, remember that apostrophes are not ALWAYS used for possessive cases - “it’s” is a contraction of it is, not the possessive of it. English is not easy since there are always exceptions to prove the rule, but then other languages are no piece of pie either (try Hebrew for instance)! Whose is for asking or answering questions of possession, where here the “You-Know-Who’s” is a way to mention a person without using their name! It would be hard for a cartoonist make a generic / universal comment to come across by saying “Linda’s” or “Doris’” (yes, after an s at the end the possessive apostrophe simply follows, WITHOUT a following “S”
ANandy said, 8 months ago
The Idiot Congress was for the retention bonuses before they were against them.
setjeff15081947 said, 8 months ago
Not very literate, are you, Mr. Szep. “Who’s” is a contraction and means “Who is”. I believe you meant “Whose”, n’est-ce pas? Ah, education, ain’t it grand?
fennec said, 8 months ago
This whole nit-picking seems to be due to the lack of hyphens. If it were “And You-Know-Who’s husband was one of those that got You-Know-What from AIG”, would y’all have any problem with it? Diagram your sentences, people, as my old grammar teacher used to say.
oldlegodad
said,
8 months ago
DIAGRAM?? Nobody teaches that anymore…its too hard for the NEA union to understand,
cdward said, 8 months ago
Oldlego, my kids ARE diagramming sentences in school. Don’t know if that makes you feel better.
WillBerry said, 8 months ago
To Fennec - I agree, Diagramming sentences, although sometimes seen as a dying art, is VERY Essential in foreign languages. In the Greek New Testament, the first sentence of the Gospel of Mark runs 57 words in the original, and without diagramming it makes NO sense at all!
richgrise said, 8 months ago
Eek! I’ve just reread the word
balloon, and “you know who’s” is
italicized, which means that fennec has a very strong point.
Cheers!
Rich
believecommonsense
said,
8 months ago
ewennick, curiosity, fennec are correct. The “who’s” in this caption is being used as a possessive for the hyphenated form of a noun, You know who. If the caption read “whose” it would be You know, whose husband was one of those … which would make the noun You know” or You know whose husband was one of those …? which would make it a question, not a statement.
acellist
said,
8 months ago
There is no other possessive form of the word ‘WHO’ other than the word “WHOSE’.
The word used is a contraction, so try reading the sentence aloud:
“And you know ‘who is’ husband was…”
or: “And you know ‘who has’ husband was…”
Here follows the dictionary definition:
who’s |hoōz|
contraction of
• who is : who’s that?
• who has : who’s done the reading?
USAGE A common written mistake is to confuse who’s with whose. The form who’s represents a contraction of ‘who is’ or ‘who has’:: who’s going to feed the dog?; | I wonder who’s left the light on again? The word whose is a possessive pronoun or adjective: | whose is this?; | whose turn is it?
Or, post some link that supports your supposition!
cdward said, 8 months ago
acelist, I have to agree with bcs and fennec that you-know-who identifies a specific person, as a name would, and therefore can be taken as a unit to which you could justifiably add an apostrophe and “s”. Since it’s italicized, that’s about as good as hyphenating or putting it in quotation marks. At least for comic strip purposes.
acellist
said,
8 months ago
Only as long as the “apostrophe s” is not italicized could the entire idiom be construed as some kind of “idiomatic personal pronoun.”
None of which matters since you have already agreed
that YOU KNOW WHO identifies a specific person,
let’s call her MARY,
the personal pronoun for whom is “WHO”,
for which the only accepted possessive form is: “WHOSE!”
believecommonsense
said,
8 months ago
But in this case “who” is simply one part of a name, like a proper noun. The who in this case is NOT being used as a pronoun, it IS a noun. Substitute the name “Sally Bennett-Who” as a hyphenated last name, for “You-Know-Who,” and the sentence would be “And Sally Bennett-Who’s husband is one of those …”
The “who’s” in that sentence is neither a contraction nor a pronoun. It’s the same as saying Linda Smith’s, or Mary Brown’s, or Shelley White’s. The apostrophe is not a contraction, it’s a possessive of the woman’s name (noun).
from World Book Dictionary definition of apostrophe:
b. to show the possessive forms of nouns or indefinite pronouns, as in John’s book, the lions’ den, and everybody’s business.
acellist
said,
8 months ago
The rules of apostrophe do not apply in this case since the word WHO cannot be made possessive by the addition of an apostrophe since a specific possessive pronoun exists for the word WHO and it is: WHOSE!
Here are the correct examples for its (another pronoun which cannot be made possessive by the addition of an apostrophe) application::
http://www.englishpage.com/minitutorials/who_whom.html
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whose
WillBerry said, 8 months ago
acellist - your avatar says it all - despite sensible answers (who’s is possesive, per Fennec and other reasonable persons) you insist on showing your grammatical limitations. If she were to ask “Whose husband got a bonus from AIG?” you’d be correct. But it wasn’t a question.
acellist
said,
8 months ago
First, find and post a link to an authoritative source that proves your point,
otherwise your mere opinion is meaningless.
Without the link, nothing you say will change that fact.
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
acelist, because the word “Who” is part of a name, a noun, there won’t be a link because it is a made up name for this toon. The best i can do is suggest that in the toon above, substitute another word for the three-part name “You Know Who” such as Sally Bennett Smith”: and then the apostrophe “s” turns it into a possessive. Without regarding “who” as a part of the woman’s name, a proper noun, your point would be correct.
My guess is the toonist and his editors had this same discussion and that’s why the name was italicized. Technically, the apostrophe and s should NOT have been italicized, but it is a toon after all.
acellist
said,
7 months ago
bcs… by agreeing with my earlier post:
“Technically, the apostrophe and s should NOT have been italicized,”
the reality of the misusage comes clear and YOU KNOW WHOSE works perfectly well yet distracts no attention from the rather funny cartoon!
Still he’s just a cartoonist… is a terrible label for someone with such an impressive set of credentials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Szep
http://www.szep.com/
None of which proves that Szep’s command of the English Language is masterful nor his editor’s grasp any better!
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
ace, I really don’t have a quarrel with you and don’t want to start one. For me, “You know whose” is not the same as “You Know Who’s.” You could be correct. It’s just my perception. And I don’t believe I disparaged Szep; I didn’t say “he’s just a cartoonist.”
Think we’ll have to agree to disagree and that’s OK.
acellist
said,
7 months ago
I don’t have a quarrel with anyone… where would you get that idea?
I only have difficulties with incorrect English usage that cannot be justified by intractable sophistry.
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
ace, well I had to look up sophistry to make sure I knew the definition. I don’t think sophistry applies, though. The crux of the difference ini the way we see it is whether “Who” is treated as a noun or as a pronoun. I read it as a noun in the toon. If a woman named Linda married Gordon Who, she would be Linda Who and the woman in the toon would have said: “And Linda Who’s husband was one of those that got a bonus from AIG.”
If she had said: “And Linda whose husband was one of those that got a bonus from AIG.” it would be an incomplete sentence because Linda would be the subject, “whose husband got a a bonus from AIG, would be a parenthetical qualifier and the sentence would lack a verb.
That’s just the way I read it, not sophistry at all, and intractable only because I believe that’s the way it reads.
I should practice diagramming sentences more, it was sort of fun. Haven’t done it like that in a long time.
acellist
said,
7 months ago
The fallacy on which the argument is based would be that “Who’s” could EVER be possessive under any circumstances whatsoever.
If I’m wrong, find the link…
this is the age of information, after all.
I’d love to see the link to an authoritative source that supports the usage you claim.
Everything I’ve read says NOT!
Who is one of the “special” pronouns:
The apostrophe in possessives
The possessive forms in English of all nouns, names and noun phrases have an apostrophe:
Johanna’s friends, my father’s books, both my parents’ concerns, a Member of Parliament’s responsibilities
Most possessive pronouns with a final /s/ or /z/ sound, including phrases that function as possessives, also have an apostrophe:
one’s, anyone’s, someone’s
everybody’s, nobody’s
another’s, the other’s (the others’, where other is plural), each other’s
somebody else’s
whoever’s
Possessive pronouns without a final /s/ or /z/ sound have no apostrophe:
your friends, their concerns
Seven common possessive forms have no apostrophe, even though they have a final /s/ or /z/ sound:
his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, whose
Some possessive forms lacking an apostrophe are fully or nearly homophonous with quite distinct words, and especially with certain contractions:
possessive forms whose your [his] its their theirs
“be” or “have” contracted forms, etc. who’s you’re [he’s] it’s they’re; there there’s
The possessive its is very commonly misspelled, by confusion with the homophone it’s (a contraction of either it is or it has).
The preceding was excerpted from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessive_adjective
Maybe you can find the link…
you can’t just invent unsupported stuff and expect it to fly!
Someone will call you on it, find the proof or the debate is over!
Anyol'tomcat
said,
7 months ago
If we wished to be dead accurate and conform to the usage rules the 18th C. grammarians copped from Latin and Greek, we should observe that correct, formal usage should be “You know whom.” That’s a nominative appositive in that sentence, so the possessive should be “You know whom’s.” “You Know Who’s” is an informal appositive, designed solely to provoke risibility. “You know whose” just rings false in this context.
http://tinyurl.com/clzz5k
Final “-s” designation in many Indo-European languages denoted the Genitive case [and the Nom. plural, which really equals a partitive genitive when you analyze it–a group of all-the-same].
Anyway the “-s” in English is a contraction of the earlier IndoEuropean -as,-es,-us Genitive, close kin to the original Old Latin gen. [L. _paterfamias- is 1st decl. but retained its original Gen. ending]
And the “’” in “‘s” denotes the contraction of the earlier genitive/plural form of “-es” of middle English usage:
_”Marie I meene doghter of Seint Anne,
Bifore whos child angeles synge Osanne”_ [emphasis supplied]
–Chaucer, “The Man of Law his Tale” [note that this also = “Man of Law’s Tale”, and the earlier spelling of “whose”]
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
ace wrote:
“Who is one of the “special” pronouns.”
This goes back to what I said is the crux of the difference between what you read and what I read.
In this cartoon, the word “who” is part of the woman’s name, therefore it is a proper noun, not a pronoun.
The citation would be rules for how one treats the possessive form of any last name, such as “Linda Who’s husband was one of those … ”
We read the word who in this cartoon differently, obviously. You read it as a pronoun, I read it as part of a name.
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
actually, I’m not trying to convince you, ace, so the debate is over. We can’t agree on the rules as long as one of us believes the “who” in this cartoon is a pronoun and the other believes it is part of a proper noun, or name.
curiosity1 said, 7 months ago
But a fascinating discussion, nonetheless.
I once read this book “Who” whose author was named What. “Who“‘s not going to be made into a movie because “Who“‘s author’s agent, Which, thought that wasn’t what What wanted.
curiosity1 said, 7 months ago
But I agree that, also looking back at my initial comment, it should have been You-Know-Who’s with Hyphens.
believecommonsense
said,
7 months ago
hey curiosity, hi, haven’t seen you for a while. yeah, the use of hyphens would have helped.
and your other post is similar to that famous baseball routine that Abbot and Costello used to do: Whose on first? Yes, Who’s on first. What? No, What’s on second ….
something like that ;oD
acellist
said,
7 months ago
Proves my point completely whether it ends with a question mark or a period:
Who’s (Who is) on first?
What’s (What is) on second.
Case closed!
You lose…
through proposing an unsupportable opinion!