Resource: Caps Lockness Monster

Beware the Nessie in your keyboard: the Caps Lockness Monster!

Writer's Block

I think you all know this feeling! Writer's block... visualized:

Word Count Humor

And here they are on Letterman in 1989:

Apostrophe Humor

You can never have too much apostrophe humor...! :-)

She texted me, "Your adorable."

I replied, "No. YOU'RE adorable."

Now she thinks I like her.

All I did was point out her typo.

Humor: Active and Passive

Just when you thought you were getting used to the whole active versus passive thing, this cartoon by Mark Anderson comes along and messes with your mind!

Grammar Cat

You've heard of Grammar Nazis... well, here is a Grammar Cat! :-)

Found at:

It's "National Grammar Day"

by Larry Ferlazzo

The Earliest Ancient Texts

The use of abbreviations was, in fact, extremely common back in the days when people had to go to the trouble of carving letters into stone, and abbreviations were also very common during the Middle Ages, for example, when writing materials were hard to come by. You can read more about the history of scribal abbreviations in writing at Wikipedia.

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Cartoon by Dan Reynolds

Vintage Social Networking

As someone who was in college back in the 1980s before the Internet, I can appreciate these vintage social networking tools... but I definitely prefer the Internet. My typing has always been much better than my handwriting, and I'm much better at blogging than at writing notes in notebooks. The cartoon is by John Atkinson from his WrongHands blog... and here are some more Atkinson cartoons.

Vocabulary: Thesaurus Club

I'm not a user of thesauruses, but I am a fan of Fight Club, so I thought this was a very funny graphic!

Thesaurus Humor

I am not a big fan of the thesaurus... but I appreciate thesaurus humor! You can read more about the history of the thesaurus at Wikipedia.

Don't use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.

Yesbody

So, what would the word "yesbody" mean...? And would the meaning of "nobody" change as a result...? I think I am a "yesbody" myself! :-)

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Cartoon by Rick Detorie

Passive-Aggressive Voice

No, passive-aggressive is not a voice like passive voice or active voice. But it is funny...!

Active Voice. You ate six donuts.

Passive Voice. Six donuts were eaten by you.

Passive-Aggressive Voice.

You ate six donuts and I didn't get any.

Don't worry, it's cool.

I can see donuts are very important to you.

The ten pronunciations of -ough

I found this fun graphic at Twitter.

And if you are wondering about the word lough, it's an Anglo-Irish word, which you might know as in the Scottish word "loch" ... as in "Loch Ness" and that lake's famous monster:

(AllPosters.com)

I Say "Tang!"

There are all kinds of "minced oaths" that are commonly used in English, like "darn" or "shoot" or (one of my own personal favorites), "criminy." You can read more about these words at Wikipedia: Minced Oath.

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Cartoon by Peter Walder

The Neurobiology of Writing

Thoughts, both humorous and profound, about the writing process from PhDComics.com.

Here is a detailed view:

Evolution of the Speech Balloon

Dan Piraro (Bizarro) is one of my favorite cartoonists, and here is his caveman take on speech balloons; you can read more about speech balloons at Wikipedia.

HEAVEN

I think the cartoon would be even funnier if the sign were in Comic Sans, a font that everyone seems to love to ridicule - but I confess: I actually like Comic Sans. The Wikipedia article on Comic Sans even has a section on the opposition to it.

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Cartoon by Mike Twohy

Game of Cats

I shared a Game of Thrones: Character Arc Generator at this blog a while ago... so I thought that in honor of International Cat Day, I would also share this "Game of Cats" graphic. A feline version of the story would be fun, and switching a story to feature animal characters can unleash all kinds of creative potential. :-)

GAME OF CATS

Storytelling Style: Tell it with Animals

Maybe the story you want to retell would work with animal characters! You could choose to work with animals of different species (with the different species conveying the qualities of the different characters), or you could recast the story with all the characters being the same species.

For different species, consider Disney's Robin Hood with Robin as a fox, Little John as a bear,  Friar Tuck as a badger, etc.

Given that cats rule the Internet, it is probably not surprising that there are lots of cat examples. For stories told with animals check out these Myth-Folklore Storybooks: The Cat Gods and the Tales of Heraclaws (Greek myths with cats) and A Kingdom of Love in a Lion Pride (the story of Cupid and Psyche told with lions).

Here's the Biblical story of Esther with animated cat gifs: The Entire Story Of Purim, As Told By Cat GIFs. Here's just one of the gifs; meet King Ahasuerus:

And here's a poster that imagines a version of Star Wars with cats... it's Star Paws.  

Writing Humor: The Fall of the Onomatopoeian Empire

Onomatopoeia is a great writing technique but, as you can see in this delightful cartoon by Scott Hillbrun, it is no way to defend an empire! For more about onomatopoeia, see Wikipedia.