What's in a name?

A Venn diagram is supposed to clarify situations. It uses graphics to help explain what would be difficult to write. However, it can become quickly complicated and then text is used supplement and to hopefully clarify. Take for example, the difference between homonym and homophone. For two different words, the first has the same spelling (i.e., name) but have a different pronunciation and the later has same sound (barring accented speech) but have different spellings.

When a word, or a series of words, are nearly homophonic they are referred to as be oronymic. Computer and Email spell checker are notorious for looking correct but are full of mistakes. Take for example the following poem:

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Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rarely ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect in it's weigh My chequer tolled me sew.

I have a spell checker it came with my PC it plainly marks for my review mistakes I cannot see. I strike a key and type a word and wait for it to say whether I'm wrong or right it shows me straight away. As soon as a mistake is made it knows before too long and I can put the error right It's rarely ever wrong. I have ruined this poem though it I'm sure you're pleased to know it's letter perfect in its way. My checker told me so.

Just goes to show that you win some, but lose a lot more.

To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

A rebus as compared to a palindrome is a little more difficult to decipher. In addition, the length of a rebus can be unlimited. Whereas the palindrome sentence becomes a bit non-sensical if too long .

The rebus is not to be confused with a pictogram, since the former does not transcend languages very well.

Included with the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes, that were launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively,

are small aluminum plaques that depict the origins of the craft. The images transcribed thereon are pictograms and hopefully in many years will be deciphered by somebody or something.

With the subsequent Voyager probes, the plaques, which had transformed to golden discs, became a bit more eclectic. Enclosing the records is a cover with etched instructions, in form of a pictogram, on how to view and listen to its contents.

If one examines the the golden cover plaque, a Rosetta stone is needed to decipher how to read the analog phonograph records. I guess that Carl Sagan was correct when he noted, "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space". The readers of the records would have to be advanced since almost everything on Earth is now digitally based.

Chariots of the Gods

There are many pyramids built throughout in the ancient world. One of the most famous ones is the one built by the ancient Egyptians called the pyramid of Cheops. There are various theories on how the pyramids were actually constructed but you can bet that working conditions were rather unpleasant and odious.

Aedes aegyti is known to be the vector of "breakbone" fever and yellow fever. She has greatly reduced the 'humming' sound made with her wings such that humans cannot hear it, unlike other species whose drone is extremely irritating and awakens the deepest sleeper.

My guess is that this species of mosquito never learned to spell onomatopea

Lorem Ipsum...

After texting a rather long message, my daughter asked me why the display keys where laid out the way a certain way. I replied that "in the old days" typewriters would "stick" if one would type (excuse me, texted) too fast and that the QWERTY layout minimized interference. To answer the next question (what's a typewriter?) required me to search for my old university machine to visually display jamming. I tried to explain white out and carbon paper but I noted a glazed look in her eyes when I mentioned selectrics. I quietly resigned to the fact that technology had once again beaten me again.

To test out "the feel" of typewriters, and later on keyboards, I would systematically use the pangram "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs". I would have used Lorem Ipsum but the phrase would be too long and besides most of the words are nonsensical Latin, or mock Latin.

Although not correct, one of the better sayings is "Nihil Illegitimi carborundum".

Time Marches on

A while back a friend asked me what snotty was in Spanish. Although I didn't know the context or the gender I answered "mocosa". Only later did I learn that the sobriquet was given to a pet kitten that just so happened to always have a runny nose with constant sneezing (maybe she was allergic to cats).

Martial law is directly derived from the ancient Roman God of War, Mars. Originally Mars was the Roman god of fertility and a protector of farmers. It was only later that Mars associated with battle as the growing Roman Empire began to expand, and he came to be identified with the Greek god Ares. Because seeds where sown in the Spring, the month of March was subsequently named after Mars.

Genesis is the the first part of the Old Testament. One story (Genesis 38) is of the second born Onan who was assigned the task of primogeniture upon death of his older brother. Understandably, Onan balked and "spilled his seed on the ground".

It's amazing how birds, whether they're pets in cages or free in the wild, are messy eaters, especially those that are sustained by seeds. Personally I think a good name for these these type of pets should be Onan.

and the answer is ..

Recently I encountered a dilemma (actually it was a trilemma) and I didn't like the result of either choice. I could have made no choice (the third option) but like in all situations it would come up at a later date and the resultant would have been worse. I felt that this entire situation was a pons asinorum.

Now, I could said that this particular paradox was a case of Buridan's ass, but it (the situation) was more of a case of Morton's Fork. But since the results were pleasant it was more of a Hobson's choice.

I wouldn't say that this was a Catch 22, but since I got around the problem (by changing the parameters) I would say that it would be more accurate to state that Kobayashi Maru came in to play.

Mirage, that's all you are to me

According to legend, Morgan la Fay was King Arthur's sorceress half-sister. In Italian, her name is Fata Morgana, which is also the name given to a special mirage observed in the Strait of Messina.

A mirage is an optical phenomenon, but a mondegreen is when the ear hears (aural phenomenon) a certain lyric in a song, and due to near homophone, yields thus a new meaning.

Although "Donuts make my brown eyes blue." is humorous, I always appreciate "There's a bathroom on the right".

Patois

It's amazing how technology, especially the Internet, affects how the written word, as opposed to the spoken word, is utilized. For example, FYI is an acronym that is different than FAQ, these are terms that are mostly used with text messaging, WEB pages or Emails.

It's almost impossible to keep abreast of all the "internet speak" as most of the items are not obvious. However, even though obscure, some terms are more appropriate than others. One of these is RTMF. This particular acronym has many variants but it generally conveys, to the recipient, the message that "I'm a bit lazy and I'd rather ask a question than read the answer".

Although not entirely technical, my favourite acronyn is TANSTAAFL. It implies that when it comes down to it, It's always a question of money. In other words, "you get what you pay for".

TE - Master of my domain

This catch phrase became well known after the airing of the Seinfeld television show. Rather than using an actual word or term, a euphemism is utilized.
In my opinion, the best euphemism regarding death is the parrot sketch by Monty Python.

TE - Titles explained - Kobayashi Maru

With each blog posting a title should help explain the subsequent text. However, readers of my blog indicate the title has nothing to do with the paragraph(s) that follow.
Within the Blog, links are placed in the text to, hopefully, clarify some of the more obscure references. This is more to appease myself as I don't want to appear too much in left field. On the other hand, the Blog titles utilize "lateral thinking" to get some pretty unique entries.

By the way, Kobayashi Maru means a "winning a no win situation". Just goes to show, "you win some, you lose a lot more".

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Easter Sunday is a holiday that celebrated by many Christians every year.
Unlike Christmas, which has a generally accepted assigned day, the date on the which the Spring holiday falls is calculated. Simply, the calculation (also known as Computus) is for the Sunday after the full moon, on or after the Spring Equinox. Accordingly, Easter can fall on 35 possible dates - between March 22 and April 25, inclusive.

Because the Easter Sunday is a movable feast, Mardi Gras (pseud., Shrove Tuesday), at the front end, also has variable date. At the back end, the Sunday that follows Easter is called "low Sunday" or quasimodo.

Quasimodo was also one of the main characters in Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris". Also known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he was, no only deformed, but deaf as a result of ringing the Cathedral bells. I often wondered if Quasimodo suffered from Tinnitus.

Tempus fugit.

There's a adage for daylight savings time that goes like this: "Spring forward and Fall back". The concept is controversial and was only possible when analog or digital clocks became of common use. Before that, sundials were one of the few means to tell time. They come in all shapes, orientation and sizes, but they all have one feature, it was a gnomon. The accuracy of the sundial is based on a variety of factors; such the shape of the gnomon, how it leans, the time of the year and the latitude.

Gnomom comes from the ancient Greeks meaning "to know". Also from the Greek is the prefix "a", which means "not". Thus the word agnostic, literally means "I don't know". Often this word is used in Religious context, it's use usually gets confused with another belief "athetisism".

Distinguishing these to concepts is difficult, but I believe that Henny Youngman said it best when he stated that "he used to be atheist, but there were no religious holidays". In turn, the ultimate agnostic was W. C. Fields. When he spent his last weeks in a hospital, where a friend stopped by for a visit and caught Fields reading the Bible. When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes". Now, that's covering all your bases!

On the tip of my tongue

One of the symptoms of dementia, or Alsheimer Disease, is loss of short term memory. One feature of this phenomenon is when one cannot recall a familiar word or name or situation, but with much effort one may eventually recall the elusive memory.

Acquired Hydrocephalus also mimics this form of "presque vu". Meaning "almost seen" from the French, this term is the sensation of being on the brink of an epiphany. Often very disorienting and distracting, presque vu rarely leads to an actual breakthrough. Frequently, one experiencing presque vu will say that they have something "on the tip of their tongue."

My guess is that people suffering from any form of memory recall malady wouldn't appreciate l'esprit de l'escalier. They're too busy thinking of the appropriate word.

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

It doesn't seem to exist anymore or at least they're hard to find. There used to be bakeries that the moment you passed through the door you knew you be buying too much because of all the wonderful smells. To top it all off there would be a lagniappe, or baker's dozen, for certain items thrown in for "good measure". Nowadays, if you want fresh baked goods, you go to the "bakery section" of the supermarket and get pre-packaged item that is wrapped in plastic to "assure natural freshness", even though the item contains all types of preservatives. It seems that nowadays they subscribe to the notion that "nothing is free" and "you get what you pay for".

TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the adage "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein popularized this saying in his novel "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". In this book he demonstrates the concept of "nothing is free and one way or another somebody will pay for it". Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole even though the cost may be hidden or distributed. I guess that's why one doesn't see much lagniappe around anymore, it costs too much.

I've been here before

I wasn't always intrigued by words that are unique and express some sort of situation, feeling or experience. This fascination came about when one day a work colleague asked me "if I ever experienced a feeling of already doing something". I retorted "do you mean déjà vu?" A sudden look of horror on his face and an almost instantaneous blurting out, "there's a word for it! I have to admit that I sensed a bit of schadenfreude when I robbed him of that unique feeling, that until that moment, was entirely his.

Well, Clarice - have the lambs stopped screaming?

When informed by a francophone friend that there was no common French word for "procrastination", I immediately said "There has to be!, what about cunctation?".

The great Carthaginian general Hannibal managed to keep the Romans, during the Second Punic War, at bay in modern day Italy for at least seventeen years. After crossing the Alps, his troops and allies fought and won a number of battles. The Romans confronted him many times, under many generals, without success until the arrival of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Fabius was aware of the military superiority of the Carthaginians, and so when Hannibal invaded Italy, Fabius refused to meet him in a pitched battle. Instead he kept his troops close to Hannibal, hoping to exhaust him in a long war of attrition. Fabius was able to harass the Carthaginians, limiting Hannibal's ability to wreak destruction while conserving his own military force. At the beginning, the Roman populace was not impressed and gave Fabius the epithet, "Cunctator" (the delayer), as an insult. However, when this stratagem proved worthwhile, the title was then evolved to become an honorific one.

Procrastination may not exist, but I'm pretty sure cunctation does.

Bear with me as I collect my thoughts

I have been one that "lurks" the WEB and just keeps quiet and comments to myself, at least in Sotto voce.

Speaking of this (softly, of course), I was rather moved when I found out that Galileo's tale was Apocryphal.