Comical, Literate Grammar — Oh My!

Sometimes pure genius shows up in strange places. I look for — and find — it in the daily comic pages and my favorite grammar blogs. Every once in a while I trip over it on the Internet. As I warn my writer students, NEVER publish your work without your name and, if appropriate, a copyright symbol. Otherwise, your progeny becomes public domain, which means anyone can use it and you receive no credit. Tsk! Tsk! All that thinking and all that work and… no credit!

One such brainchild has appeared with no credits. Titled “Literary Devices”, it includes eight panels of clever drawings that illustrate these mechanical (over-used) devices. They are:

Random Analogy Generator
Foreshadow Puppet
The Great Golden Hammer of Hyperbole
Onomatopoeia Engine (puff! pop! clank! Whirrrr…)
Advance-Alert Alliteration Alarm (ahem!)
Personification Press
Irony Board
and my favorite: Metaphor Mixer and Simile Stretcher

You could almost make a song out of that last one! Somebody somewhere has a very fertile — and syntaxic, grammatic, linguistic, literatic — comic mind!