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Bottle of homophone

By Pot Luck

Bottle of wine

I love a bit of word play and today I’ve played with homophones

I can’t help but feel that a group of engineers must have got together and felt the need to create a set of labelled boxes to sort out all of the peculiarities associated with words of the english language. What am I talking about? It’s the old homonym, homophone, heteronym, polyseme and capitonym boxes. So what does each box hold?

Homonym  

  • Words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings.
  • left (opposite of right or depart the building)

And now the engineers get a bit tricky with a box partly in a box (the homonym box that is)…

Homophone (‘same sound’)

  • Same pronunciation, different meaning and regardless of their spelling
  • wine (good to drink 🙂 ) and whine (speciality skill set possessed by my children)
  • to, too, two

Another box partly in the homonym box…

Homograph (‘same writing’)

  • Words that share the same spelling, with a different meaning and regardless of how they are pronounced
  • bat (animal or sports equipment)

And this type sits squarely inside the Homograph box…

Hetronym (‘different name’)

  • Same spelling, different pronunciation and meaning
  • bow BAU – front of ship  and BOH weapon of choice for Robin hood and his merry men
  • desert dihZURT– don’t leave just yet, we’re nearly at the end and DEZert– arid region

I think they just wanted to see if they could partly place another box inside the Homograph, introducing the…

Polyseme (‘many signs/words’)

  • Same spelling and distinct but related meaning
  • mouth (used to eat chocolate or the opening of a cave or river)

I think they came up with this one after a few glasses of whine… I mean wine…

Capitonym

  • Same spelling but different meaning when capitalised
  • march (uniform walk) and March (third month in year)
  • earth (soil) and Earth (our home)

I love the English language. What peculiarities do you like about it?

June 12, 2015
Love2

When Pie met Pi

By Pot Luck

Pie versus Pi

And now for a few fun facts about Pi / Pie. See if you can tell which fact belongs to which one!

  • March 14 is Pi/Pie day (3.14) and Albert Einstein was born on that day too.
  • Pumpkin Pie/Pi was introduced to the pilgrims second Thanksgiving in 1623.
  • In the Star Trek movie, Wolf in the Fold, Spock foils the evil computer by ordering it to compute to last digit the value of pi/pie. In the real world, computers can undergo a ‘digital cardiogram’ (a stress test) by computing pi/pie.
  • The American Pie Council is an organization committed to preserving America’s pi/pie heritage and promoting American’s love affair with pi/pies.
  • The Guinness World Records for memorising pie/pi (this practice is called piphilology) was achieved by Chao Lu, who recited pi from memory to 67,890 places. It took him 24 hours and 4 minutes with 4 years of practice.
  • Pi/pie cannot be accurately represented in fraction form. Most of us know it as 22/7, but this only represents 0.00000849%. However, it would be more accurately represented with this fraction 104348/33215 (00000001056%).

What’s your Pi/Pie story?

June 5, 2015
Love1

Multi tasking mirrors

By That's life, Work

Who's the fairest of them allPoor Frank, but perhaps there is one thing the two of them have in common…the love of coffee!

I admit, it’s my weakness. I can’t start the day at work without one. Even though I would like to think of myself as a coffee connoisseur, my coffee of choice shows that my palette is one of an amateur – café latte. But perhaps I shouldn’t feel too bad as I recall the man who came into my favourite coffee haunt the other day and ordered a double double espresso (no, you are not seeing double, it was his coffee that was). Noticing the look of surprise on the barista’s face, he obviously felt the need to explain. Apparently it was only the second time he had ordered one – Oh, I get it, that makes it OK… I guess.

Wiki, has an amazing list of over 53 coffee types, including some you may not be that familiar with, such as:

  • Guillermo: One or two shots of hot espresso, poured over slices of lime (sounds terrible)
  • Café bombón: Espresso with condensed milk, popular in Spain (I’ve tried similar in Vietnam and I must admit, a bit too sweet for me)
  • Caffe Zoro: Double espresso  added to hot water with a 1:1 ratio (I liked the sound of the name)
  • Greek frappé: Originating in Greece in the early 1950’s, it is a foam-covered iced coffee drink made from spray-dried instant coffee.
  • Red Tie: A traditional Thai iced tea, comprising of a single shot of espresso and a spicy and sweet mixture of chilled black tea, orange blossom water, star anise, crushed tamarind, sugar and condensed milk or cream (Umm, what can I say? I think I would need to try it before passing judgement)

So what’s your brew of choice? Ever tried an unusual one?

 

May 28, 2015
Love1

So what does it taste like?

By Animals, Dogs

Dog tastes drumstick for first time

Ah, too obvious! Of course it would have to be chicken.

So why does meat often taste like chicken?…Well maybe it doesn’t. Our friends at MythBusters did a taste test of different meats to see if  ‘it is easy to confuse the taste of unusual meats with that of chicken.’ They had twenty meats prepared for tasting (if you’re a vegetarian, or animal lover, skip this paragraph and read the results in the following paragraph), including: frog, peacock, squab, alligator, goat and turtle (What the…!) For the non squeamish, check out there video here.

Tory got 17 out of 20 samples correct and Grant only 11. The giveaway for Tory was the texture of the meat, so they did the test again; this time with minced meat to take away the texture. The results improved with Tory identifying 18 of 20 and Grant 19 of 20. In the words of MythBusters – Busted.

I was once tricked with goat for lamb (not happy, goat is a no go zone for me), but never chicken.

Have you ever confused another meat for chicken?

 

May 21, 2015
Love1

Triple in equals triple out

By That's life, Work

How mirrors improve work revenue

Just imagine if your in tray tripled over night – Scary thought, huh?

Office in tray management is a big thing these days and many graduates are subjected to assessment centre exercises as part of the job interview process. One of the activities tends to include the in-tray exercise where you are given a hypothetical in tray which you then have to work your way through. With no definitive right or wrong answer, the objective is to assess the candidate’s ability to prioritse, work to a time frame and effectively determine actions to handle the information.

Thank goodness they hadn’t invented this when I went for my initial job interviews, as my uni degree certainly didn’t arm me with these skill sets for when I entered the work force.

Have you ever sat one of these tests and how did you go? If you haven’t, how do you think you would go?

May 14, 2015
Love1

Get the party started with conversation sticks

By Freebies

Give away party games to get conversation started
Need an ice breaker for your next party?

Look no further than these free Conversation Stix. Guaranteed to getting everyone social or your money back!

This party conversation game has a slight twist, featuring cartoon halves to match with others and ice breaker trivia and questions to get everyone talking. Ideal for both house parties and dinner parties. Simply place these sticks at the front door as you greet guests, or place in a container in the middle of your dinner party table and allow guests to choose a stick one at a time.

What are you waiting for? Download the Conversation Stix now!

Be the first to download the next freebie by signing up to my email list.

Check out my other freebies here.

May 12, 2015
Love0

The three toed sloth

By Animals

Three toed sloth cartoon

The three toad sloth with extra suction

Sloths are probably the closest looking real life cartoon in existence. After drawing this cartoon, I had to do a bit more research on this wonderful mammal. Here are some things you might’t know about the humble sloth.

  • They are so slow moving that algae grows on their fur – Well I joke partially, but it does help them stay camouflaged in the tree top homes.
  • There are both two toed and three toed sloths, but both have long claws up to 10cm in length, which they use to grip to tree branches.
  • Sloths once were as large as elephants…but that was thousands of years ago and these types have been extinct for over 10,000 years.
  • It can take up to a month for a sloth to digest it’s meal. Their leaf diet is hard to break down and they rely on stomach bacteria to help the process along.

So what’s your favourite animal?

1280px-MC_Drei-Finger-Faultier

Credit Wiki Commons: Drei Finger Faultier

 

 

May 10, 2015
Love2

When mirrors talk in the workplace

By That's life, Work

When mirrors take sidesTalking mirrors, eh?

Well, IKEA have done exactly that with their Motivational Mirror. Their research suggested that in the UK

  • 49% of the British receive no compliments in an average week
  • 43.6 million people in the UK are self-critical about their appearance
  • 33% of the nation feel they look their worst before 9am on a Monday morning

The solution to this issue – the talking mirror, which compliments you as you stand in front of it.  Take a look at the customers’ reaction as they pass by in this You Tube video. Currently on trial in UK IKEA stores; I guess time will tell if it’s a success or not. I don’t think this one is for me, but it could be a fun way to start the day.

So over to you. Will you be rushing to pre-order one today?

April 30, 2015
Love1

Right brain versus left brain

By That's life

How to get from A to Z using your left and right brain

Working as an engineer, I feel this explains many things about my work colleagues

Ask any neuroscientist what they think about the analytical left brain vs the creative right and you’ll probably end up with a lengthy lecture on why that whole concept is a myth. If logical thinking lights up those electrodes in the left brain hemisphere and visual creativity lights up the right, it doesn’t mean that your brain is more dominant on one side versus the other. The brain works as a network and such simple ‘if…then…’ type assumptions don’t necessarily correlate.

Even so, it’s good to have a bit of fun with the notion, so I couldn’t help myself and found this 5 minute online left brain vs right brain test and this shorter 30 second one. If you’re a wee bit curious as to what you are ‘labelled’, then take the short or long version.

I must admit, I thought I’d be more balanced, but my results were 78% right for the short and 67% right for the long test (showing you just how accurate the whole process is 🙂 ).

If you take the test, let me know how you go

April 24, 2015
Love2

Boss logic

By That's life, Work

Mirrors used to duplicate work output

I’m beginning to think the boss is onto something here.

That’s it! Now even I am convinced of the boss’s logic here; nothing like a little scientific experiment to prove your theory. I’m buying two for my workstation immediately.

Will you join me?

 

April 17, 2015
Love1
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