While it is not often that this blog is used for grammatical lessons, one suspects that the following is employed more as an aide mémoiré than as a method of educating the citizenry in general about matters linguistic. However, the following strip from the pen of Dave Kellett prompted one to ponder the intricacies of this specific concern’s points defining it.

First, behold the strip in question:

CLICK THROUGH to see the newer version of the cartoon

As you’ll note from the caption, there is a ‘newer’ version of the cartoon, because the original version you see here is incorrect, something the highly-educated artist discovered after displaying the work to the world in general. What occurred after this was as much of a surprise to me as it was to him: a homonym is not a word which merely sounds the same as another of a differing meaning! No, no!

What Mr. Kellett was told was that the matter to which he referred was, in point of fact, a homophone as this is something which sounds the same but means something entirely different. This is in direct contrast to – but not in exclusion of – the homograph, which is a word that is spelled the same as another but which has an altogether differing meaning. His reaction to the information and explanation of it CAN BE READ HERE.

Here’s where things get all edumacational, so feel free to either fall asleep or sit on the edge of your chair so as to demonstrate your fanaticism to the teacher all the more. One suspects that the whole matter is being committed to text here solely to remind oneself of the difference, and not for the benefit of the Community at all. You are free to absorb the lesson without even the slightest charge to your pocket, however. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

“Homonym” applies to words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origin. Note that both states are required to be achieved, so that the same sound and spelling are present.

I saw the pile of firewood, and therefore didn’t trip over it and split open my fool head on the floor.

Because this firewood is too long to fit in the fireplace, I shall saw it in half.

The first use of “saw” is the act of sight. The second use of “saw” is the act of using a sharpened blade of some sort to create two shortened lengths of wood from one long one.

The label “Homograph” applies to words which are spelled the same, yet are not of the same meaning or pronunciation.

Gracious! Those two are having quite a violent row with each other!

Gracious! He’s so fed-up with her that he’s got in that boat and will row away with all due haste!

The first use of “row” refers to an argument and is pronounced in a way which rhymes with “bow-wow”. The second use of “row” is the verb indication the act of using oars to move a small boat through the water, pronounced in a way to rhyme with the first half of “bow-tie”.

The term “Homophone” applies to two words which mean entirely different things but which sound the same when pronounced. They can also be spelled the same, but a true Homophone wouldn’t be, and then it would fall in to the category of Homonym, and that specific aspect of the word would be termed a Homograph, whereas the examples below have the characteristic of Heterographs because they are of different spellings.

What does a cat weigh when it’s on your chest at 4:30AM?

When a cat sits on your chest at 4:30AM, there’s no way you can move.

The first use of the sound “way” refers to the the magnitude of force that must be applied to an object in order to support it (IE: hold it at rest) in a gravitational field. The second use of the sound “way” refers to the infinite number of methods of movement which might be pointlessly attempted when a feline is at rest upon one’s torso at an un-godly hour of the morning. This particular opposition of both spelling and meaning is the root of nearly all puns. We like those. The Homophone is also exactly what, in the cartoon at the start of this post, is being enjoyed by Arthur, the talking duck with the colander on his head.

Now, for those of you who love the Venn Diagram in all its forms, here is one courtesy of Wikipedia:

CLICK HERE to learn more about that (new tab or window)

So… there we are.

While I am an Editing Publisher, this doesn’t mean that all of the various grammatical terms are known to me, and I frequently fall back on instincts based entirely on ‘what sounds right’. Oddly, that usually is enough for the matter. But this sort of linguistic ephemera is fascinating when taken in small doses (repeat as necessary until symptoms abate).

Within the world of social networking, specifically on Twitter, this is the day you dedicate a status update to promoting those people you follow due to their supreme quality of information contained in their updates or are particularly entertaining. This is a blog and not Twitter, I know. But that’s what today’s post is about even so.

Damn it, this is my blog, so I’ll do what I please with it!

And you’ll pay attention to those I promote as well, as it shall improve your life!

It will, really!

Warren Ellis is a sick and twisted being; click “BAD SIGNAL” on the right to sign-up for irregular invasion of your in-box Christopher Fowler writes books which you will now buy many copies of Sheldon is a daily dose of the under-appreciated ‘silly’ variety The Rime of the Postmodern Mariner, Rhys Hughes’s blog, is also silly CBC Radio live feeds (choose from all three channels within the 5½ national time-zones) Earlier with Lee Rosevere has repeats of the 17-minute weekday show and more Tim Lebbon is a writer who makes you like books with dragons Simon Strantzas is a writer writing about writing Tentative Equinox (and the comments are often just as entertaining; here’s the RSS feed for them) Charlie Brooker writes words for the Guardian

Warren Ellis is a sick and twisted being CBC Vancouver provides programme information and new media thoughts Tim Lebbon often speaks of his dog Dave Kellet is the artist behind Sheldon Mari Adkins is an editor, writer, and cat obsessive Peter M. Wilson retired from the Vancouver Sun in 2007 and has tech thoughts Deb Pickman likes making theatre and the colour pink The Tyee is probably the new Vancouver Sun, only more socialist Charlie Brooker gets to tweet words the Guardian won’t print Darth Vader (not really, but it’s quite funnny) Eddie Izzard is a talented monologuist Theatre at UBC is a good source of arts news and theatre information

Now do all that, and fill your life with all the pointless wastes of your day that I use to avoid washing dishes and things.

See how helpful this blog is?

Well, here’s an interesting development… What started as a bit of a lark has turned into a real-world testing lab.

That’s the person who started me thinking more seriously about this electronic book thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

In his original post, he pointed out Christopher Fowler’s lack of by-line on the Independent’s site where it reproduced his second article about ‘forgotten authors’. I responded. Fowler’s a wonderful guy and I think the world of him. Read his books. Better yet: buy his books. Do it or you’ll be smacked with a wet sock. Go to a store or library and get several. I’ll wait here until you’re back.

[hums idly until reader returns]

You’ll be glad you did that, I assure you.

Now in this post, Mr. Cane speaks of e-books and our lack of supply of them. After explaining that this is very much one of our stated goals in development of our ‘get books to the people’ campaign (as well as blaming Guy Adams for one of many things), I offer to ‘set a girl up’ so that we might have someone ‘outside the family’ to look at things and see if they work the way we’d like them to. Also, there’s the added attraction of testing books written in ‘proper English’ on those who seem hell-bent on destroying it in all manner of fashions.

How do you feel about the ‘e-book’? Like it in theory, but the equipment’s too expensive? Like it in theory but the equipment can’t be taken into the bath? Loathe it in theory and practicality and feel the need of smashing the Kindle every time you see one?

For those of you in the last field (and I recognise your view as being my own initial one), here’s something to consider: you’re reading a text on a screen right now. Not so bad, is it? Here’s another article that Mike Cane referred to in his continuing campaign for e-books to conquer the world, from the blog The Digitalist, written by Digital Team at Pan Macmillan (and let’s hope they don’t look too closely at some of our titles).

10 Reasons Not to Write-Off Reading from a Screen

1. We do it all the time anyway. Whether it’s emails, blogs, the newspaper or text messages for the bulk of us, most of our reading is already on screen. The New York Times now [has] 13 million online readers per day against a print readership of 1.1 million.

Tough to refute that. Still, the experience of holding a real book — and just using the term ‘real’ subjugates the e-book — is something that many value above all else, equating it to an over-all sensory experience that is nigh-on orgiastic when applied to borrowing a book from the library and thumbing its well-worn pages that has been handled by so many other anonymous users and then returned to the shelf like some cheap harlot in Limehouse.

And yet, if one’s basic concept regarding the written word in its varied forms — short story, novel, fiction, non-fiction, biographical account of history, whatsoever it may be — is that the word is prima rosa, then of what importance is the method of its delivery? Do we criticise the reader of Tolstoy’s works in mass-market paperbacks because hard-cover editions are the only way of honouring the ‘great words of the master’? Do we decry those who peruse the sonnets of the Bard of Avon because they’ve bought a volume of them exclusive of his plays? Do we eschew the company of those who read The Menachme in — pshaw! — English? No! none of these are important, because we all rejoice to see the tales continue to be read and the stories within them prove their timelessness to another generation of people.

So, that being agreed to, why then do we suddenly jump up and cry ‘foul!’ when paper isn’t involved? Is there a more or less acceptable form for a tale to be provided in? Because the works of Dickens are suddenly available in a form suitable to Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, does this mean men will come to your home like the Firemen of Fahrenheit 451 and destroy all of your carefully collected first editions? NO! All are free to continue using ‘dead tree’ versions already extant, as well as future paper versions of things.

However, when I stare at over a yard length of books I have yet to read (some of them our own titles, embarrassingly), the use of one of these little electric sex boxes is crystal clear: they don’t weigh much and you can stuff a large number of books in an overcoat pocket with ease.

When I returned from overseas last fall, Guy lent me a large number of books he felt were worthwhile in my continuing effort to know more about the forms of fantastical fiction available. Wonderful stuff, and it got me into Christopher Fowler’s writing (see how we complete the circle here? niiiiiice…). And yet, those fuckers weighed a ton and I had to pay ‘excess baggage’ charges because of it. Now, had those seventeen volumes been electronic books, I would have had to pay zilch, with the possibility that a few of my own book files would have had to be deleted to make room for these ones of Guy’s, but that would be fine as I would have had master copies of them on my computer at home in this hypothetical paradise.

See how much easier that is for everyone? I don’t have to pay baggage charges, we don’t have to use up precious fuel resources moving the weight of them across the globe so I can read them (still working on them, by the way), we don’t have to use more fuel and postage to get them back to Guy, and no trees need die for them to be in existence in the first place!

Okay, now that this is all out there for your consideration, here’s three views of “The Kindle Option” from Sheldon: The Daily Comic Strip by Dave Kellett (and click each one to go to his site and see them bigger):

Yes, more of it, and due to special request, the further discussion of Klingon characteristics. and this time, you can click the image to enlarge it for easier read-a-fic-ation!

Again, that’s all part of Sheldon. Go. View. Laugh. Make the world a happier place.

I don’t often plug something here unless I’ve something to do with it. Out of a lack of time for anything else, typically.

However, let that not be the case today. SHELDON! You need to visit this daily so go to the site and stuff the RSS feed in your reader, or sign-up for the daily e-mail of the comic strip.

Yes, I said ‘comic strip’.

On the internet, yes.

It’s like in the newspaper, only without the killing of innocent trees.

And waaaay funnier.

a strip of funny things

Actually, the independent comic artists and the independent literary press are much alike. Both shove their wares out there and hope people will buy things. In my case, books written by other people that I’ve edited and so on. In the case of Dave Kellett, it’s a case of shoving your daily panels of ‘funny’ onto the web and hoping people will buy the hard-copies of semi-regular collections of them.

I would try and explain the world of the strip, with its intelligent talking duck who’s adopted a lizard (which can only say the word “squee”) as his son, both of whom live with a multi-millionaire kid and his grandfather who mostly has a moustache (but always seems to be more like my Father than I care to consider), plus a pug named Oso who is all enthusiasm and no brain at all…

Look, just head here for an introduction, you’ll get the idea. He’s even got an audio tour you can use to acclimatise yourself to all things Sheldon.

Eventually you will be hooked. No, really.

Anyone who can make jokes based around punctuation needs to be lauded.

more funny things

Eventually you will be hooked. No, really. You will, trust me. My mother recommended it, and I thought “yeah, okay, I’ll see what it’s like…” and then found that I’d spent at least an hour giggling happily.

If jokes about punctuation don’t do it for you, how about Klingons?

more funny things with Klingons this time

You see what I mean? This is not Fred Bassett, nor is it Cathy or Andy Capp. If you like those strips, fine and dandy, but I like this one better.

I’d buy the books, just to be able to lie in the bath and giggle a lot, but I’m broke (and am blatently hoping that Dave will read this and send me the lot of them… or maybe a t-shirt instead… or something…). If nothing else, I want to show my appreciation of the grandness of this important part of my daily routine by sharing it with the rest of you. This is worthwhile stuff. Even his daily posts about the strip — or even his dead scanner the other day — are funny and a wonderful break from one’s routine.

It’s fresh, it’s new, it’s silly, and it’s not going to bore you. It’s also guaranteed to start your day off in the right way: you’ll be at least 115% happier and more awesome in a fortnight or my name isn’t Séan Gemorgån.

Oh… wait…