#Fun with Words

[evilkitten3]

"deltarune" is an anagram of "undertale"...

"roaring knight" is an anagram of "thanking rigor"....

could mean many things

[coquelicoq]

yea is one of those words that people probably see in writing and don't realize how it's "pronounced" (pronounced in quotation marks because really a word is pronounced however people pronounce it)...yea as in the opposite of nay (i vote yea) or yea as in "yea high" (it was yea high [holds hand up to indicate how tall something is]) is pronounced like the interjection "yay" (yippee), not like "yeah" (yes). actually the way i mainly see this manifest is that people hear it spoken in the contexts previously mentioned and then write it down as yay. it was yay high. i vote yay. which is pretty cute...i vote yippee let's do it

[merakisphere]

Here's a Fun Fact, did you know this!?

"Was it a car or a cat I saw"

Spelled backwards is:

"Was it a car or a cat I saw"

Can someone remind me what you call these types of play on words? Also, if you know anymore, please share! :)

I am overjoyed that you've come across my handmade work! These are fascinating pieces that continue to captivate my attention since seeing them back in the early 90s. #corememory

I construct every piece by hand as you can see in the video. Please help me decide on a name for this crackly-blue colour way, as it's current name (Crackled Cobalt) feels a bit uninspiring...

Please consider reblogging/sharing my post as this helps get the word out that these still exist! I'm certain for every 10 reblogs, it'll cross paths with someone who also shares memories of these when they were younger.

My Etsy Shop: Meraki Sphere Use code TUMBLR for a special discount just for hanging out. <3

[marlynnofmany]

for-prophet organization (four-prophet organization?)

Sounds like a fantasyland tax-avoidance scheme! No gods to worship, just the prophets themselves. All four of them. Who are very good at marketing. Of course it's not a cult; why do you ask?

[purpledragon-ephemera]

Fun With Words Author Unknown; illustrated by Tom Lopes

Cobblestone, December 1999

[absolutely-esme]

There is this trope where whatever thing the plot revolves around has been around and involved long enough to shape humanity's technological, cultural, or even evolutionary development, but human society is just the same as it is in the real world where that thing doesn't exist.

Which means that either whatever source this information comes from is lying, or the writer has decided to majorly nerf humans in this fictional universe.

"Humanity never could have invented cell phones without this crashed alien space ship!" Bitch, yes we could. We have the entire process from the discovery of radio waves to modern smart phones documented. Every step in that process is well within the capabilities of human beings, especially when you take our tendency to teach and learn from each other into account.

"Whithout this weird magical being's interference, humans would still be living in caves!" No we wouldn't. Humans will find ways to make stuff out of anything we happen to have on hand. I have seen a YouTube video of someone making a ballgown out of smartphone cases that needed a wooden framework on wheels for the skirt because it would have been way too heavy for a hoopskirt and a normal person's waist. You really think the species that did that can't work out how to build buildings without some outside force explaining it?

"Humans wouldn't even have those big brains without the intervention of..." I'm just gonna stop you right there. Dogs, cats, and fire were all major contributing factors in the development of big brains in humans. Hunting with dogs was more efficient and got more meat. Cats kept rodents at bay which allowed us to store more food. Fire allowed us to get more out of our food by cooking it to make the nutrients more available. All of this allowed us to dedicate more calories to brain function without starving. It wasn't an outside force of dubious intentions that made us the species we are, it was the companion species who made the journey with us and the fires we lit along the way.

Sometimes it's done in a way that actually works, but a lot of times I find myself thinking "damn, you really couldn't think of anything interesting to add to modern life?"

Like, in the live action transformers movies (which I could complain about plenty) they found and studied Megatron and the freaking Allspark itself and all they got was an alternate path to the smart phone? Not better prosthetic limbs, sentient robot companions, or even just stuff that folds up for travel better?

You're telling me that the species that raised wolf cubs despite knowing how dangerous wolves were to them and selectively bred the nightmares that hunted us for our meat into our beloved dogs looked at the scrappy little critters the Allspark generated and didn't think "but what if friend?" That they didn't see a the creation of a new life that was like a much tinier version of the bigger thing they found and think "Oh my goodness it's a baby!"

That's so boring. The Bayverse's version of humanity is boring and mean and sad.

If you want an example that I think works, Kyuubey from Madoka Magica claiming credit for humanity's progress works, because it would make sense for Kyuubey to lie about this. Kyuubey wants something and is demonstrably willing to mislead and withhold information to get it (the soul gem reveal was a pretty big deal).

Kyuubey deliberately targets children who haven't finished school and not, say, university students or graduates looking for work. Kyuubey claims it is because young girls produce the most emotional energy, but we don't have any evidence outside of Kyuubey's word regarding Kyuubey's reason for anything, and Kyuubey is not a reliable narrator.

Kyuubey's role in the story is something dangerous disguised as something nice, a wolf in sheep's clothing, if you will. Adding one more layer of deception that makes Kyuubey look better or, at least, more necessary to a kid who doesn't know better works just fine in the story that's being told.

[ladyfauxhawk]

I saw your comment somewhere about names for pillbugs/woodlice in different parts of the world, and i just wanted to share some of the other great names for them in the UK (though i really want to look up other countries variations now) but some regions call them Chucky pigs, cheesy logs, and in most of scotland they're known as slaters. Here is a post about it:

https://www.icge.co.uk/?p=woodlice

But yes I find the variation in this word so cool! I always thought the US (presumably not everywhere in US?) "Pillbug" such a cute name and wished I'd grown up with a word more exciting than "woodlouse", objectively the worst one.

Sorry to invade your inbox, I'm just excited to share!

If my asks box looked like this every day I'd be delighted! Thank you for sharing.

This map of names is amazing and shows how much humans love giving animals and insects nicknames. Some favorites: monkey pea, granny-grey, Billy baker, leather jacket, AND THE WHOLE CHEESE CATEGORY!

When I was in college, I took a class from Professor Tom Shippey, a philologist who was a protege of JRR Tolkien. The class was on Tolkien and CS Lewis and the Inklings, but we spent a lot of time playing with words and their origins. This sort of map would have l delighted Tolkien, I think. Now I wonder if Hobbits would call them cheesy logs 😂

Thank you for finding the good bits in my ramblings and sharing. 💖

[michaelrotonal]

ambiguous compound words!

the rules are simple. blue, pink, blue+purple, and purple+pink all have to be singular nouns.

handlead

earlyear (early is a noun. its plural, earlies, is valid in scrabble as the plural of early)

mawhole (this feels like a fun one because both pronounciations are the same)

carbroom (this one also has both pronounciations the same)

partone

applead

singerman

[lurkerwithcomputer]

My brain spat out the term "sporange". I don't know what a sporange is but there's about one possible combination I've come up with that does not sound Wretched™.

Sponge + Orange: Looks like an orange, has the texture and flavor of cleaning sponge. Gross.

Spore + Orange: Looks like an orange, tastes like raw mushroom. Probably also gives you The Fungus of some kind. Gross and unsafe.

Spoon + Orange: Okay, at least the mental image here is more like eating orange with a spoon, which is weird but not disgusting.

[autumnsunshine10]

Next Stop

Okay so here's the thing--

My guard went out to lunch

Then one shuffled up offering

Profundity temporarily covering

Nitty-gritty insipidity--for shame!

Trenchcoat drenched...look away.

Parking my backside on a bench,

Sitting out another grand slam game;

Pop up scrimmage on the fly,

Suiting up umpire style...

Learned lesson, belatedly applied.

Supplanted, supply and demand

Disenchanted by an elephant

In the room I read wrong.

My head can't wrap around

Tunnel vision distance...

Put the fun in funneling,

The scam in scampering.

There's nothing to see here--

Heavily cloaked fully clothed,

Dragging busted baggage...

So it's not just a compact carry-on.

That's fine, I'll take my chances

On the next bus to stop by.

Prompts: there's a thing, park bench

[king-of-men]

Character nicknamed 'Rower' because he's a competitive sculler, but right now he's working his day job as a network engineer trying to figure out where the breakage is.

Where are the lost Pings of Rower?

[coquelicoq]

i love saying "a number of" something. "that's for a number of reasons." how many reasons? one of the numbers. you don't need to know which.

[gawrkin]

Normal People: Ambidextrous

Me: Sinister Dexter

[mariana-oconnor]

Google docs trying to change "have good taste" to "taste good".

Yep, those two things mean exactly the same thing. I foresee no problems.

[puppetmaker40]

A new life goal.