Dim And Dimmer

Two uncommon words walk into a bar, arguing about whether they are homonyms, or homophones.  No-one greets them by name, like Norm, on “Cheers,” because no-one recognises them.

In most cases of homonyms, people know one or both of the odd couple.  Everyone knows both wait, and weight.  Most are familiar with meet and meat, but mete might be a stranger.  I recently ran into a pair of homophones that only word-nerds like me don’t need to be introduced to.  Ladies and gentlemen – let’s have a big hand for the comedy duo of

FAIN AND FEIGN

FAIN: adverb – gladly, willingly – adjective – willing, glad, pleased, eager
FEIGN: imitate deceptively, make believe, pretend, put on an appearance of

Rather than argue about whether to call themselves homonyms, or homophones, they might better try to find another term to describe themselves.  Far too many ‘Good Christians’ in the Bible Belt of the southern United States, particularly in Arkansas and Texas, get far too upset, ‘and don’t cotton to none of that there HOMO-anything!’

A not-out gay comedian was doing a tour of small cities in West Texas.  Perhaps looking for a bit of one-night companionship, he engaged the waitress in a greasy-spoon diner, about the presence of local gay culture – clubs, favored restaurants, etc.  She quickly and firmly informed him, “They ain’t no homosexuals in Texas.  Not live ones, anyways.”

I would fain believe her, and I do not have to feign my distress.

The largest group of homonyms heteronyms includes AIR, ERR, E’ER, ERE, HEIR, AYR, AYRE, AYER and perhaps a Canadian EHer.  I’ll be back in a couple of days.  Be sure to join me, eh.  😉   😆

’18 A To Z Challenge – A

Aaugh!  Is it April again??  I just awoke from my winter’s hibernation, and shambled out of the Den, to find other folks well into the alphabet already. As usual, I’m off to a slow start.  Using my Great Awakening as a cheat for the letter A, I’ll make this one a theme-reveal post – “Theme” in only the loosest of senses.

I thought that I might use ‘Trope’. It’s a figure of speech that includes ‘interpolation,’ which is just a fancy word that means the (sometimes)nonsensical non-sequiturs covered by the promised rambles inside some of my rants.

I decided instead, to go with Chaos And Confusion.  I provide the chaos, and you are confused.  This is completely different from last year’s theme, which was Confusion And Chaos, where you were confused, and I provided the Chaos.  Got that all straight??  Good, now explain it to me.

Alms! Alms for a hungry beggar!  Hungry for inspiration – not food.  (Have you seen my tummy recently??  Happily, NO.  My belt size threatens to become greater than my IQ.  [And there you have the first of my non-sequitur interpolations.])

If any of you have a word or theme, for any letter, that you think would be safe to let me loose with in public, feel free to submit it.  I would welcome all suggestions.  I can do serious research, or just my usual, disorganized babble.

Please stop back again soon for a post that doesn’t use any letters of the alphabet, but definitely in two weeks, when I use the letter B to batter the American Bible Belt, and Donald Trump’s banality.  😯

Alabama Internet

A POST WHERE WE FIND OUT WHERE SUPPORTERS
OF DONALD TRUMP GET THEIR INFORMATION

Bible Belt Computer Lingo

Log On – make the wood stove hotter
Log Off – don’t add no more wood
Monitor – keep an eye on that wood stove
Download – gettin’ the wood off the pickup
Floppy Disc – what you get from tryin’ to carry too much wood
Ram – the thing what splits the fire wood
Hard Drive – comin’ home from the bar after the KKK meetin’
Prompt – throw another log on the fire
Window – what to shut when it’s cold outside
Screen – what to shut in fly season
Byte – what flies do
Bit – what flies did
Mega Byte – what big flies do
Chip – munchies while monitorin’
Micro chip – what’s left after you ate the chips
Modem – what you did to the hay fields
Dot Matrix- ol’ Dan Matrix’s wife
Lap top – where kittens sleep
Software – them dumb plastic knives they give you at Golden Corral
Hardware – real stainless steel knives an’ forks
Mouse – what eats the grain in the barn
Main frame – what holds the barn up
Enter – fancy city talk for, “Y’all come on in now”
Web – the thing spiders make
Web site – where the spiders make ‘em
Search Engine – what you do when yer car dies
Cursor – somebody who swears a lot
Screen saver – a repair kit fer the torn screen door

I think about half of these are deplorable. C’mon Election, before more of these pop up!   😆
***

The wife and I are invading the Excited States again, and won’t be back for a few days.  Enjoy a few laughs on my tab while I’m gone.  I’ll be back with some real live comments, and perhaps a Flash Fiction soon.