Saturday, October 13, 2007

@!%!**#~@#!!

This has absolutely nothing to do with my inability to post three incredibly concise and insightful posts in consecutive order, but I was recently looking for one of those cartoon curse strings, and I decided to google it, naturally. And that's when I realized - what are these things called, anyway? Now, I know there are clever columns dedicated to arcane questions like this in highbrow magazines, but that's just not me.

I've decided to name these things plotives. No, the name is not already taken. The plotive that denotes a sound like "p" or "t" with a brief, violent blast of air escaping through the lips is long vowel plotive, and you can tell everybody that John's neologism has a short o. Plot. ive. The plotive above, by the way, is from Beetle Bailey, which I'm quite sure is the New Times Roman of plotives.