Bit of a headache
There are some themes that cartoonists seem to revisit over and over again. The classic one is “marooned on a desert island”. Then there’s the “about to jump off the ledge of a tall building” scenario, and the “down-and-out begging on the street” subject - to name but three. (Strange that the humour of most cartoons involves human suffering to a greater of lesser degree, don’t you think?)
Another favourite topic involves the words sex (or lack of) and headache. You can even adapt this into a computer gag….
(Cartoon taken from The Domestic Scene in Microholics)
There’s a bit of irony associated with this cartoon, which is that working for too long in front of a computer screen can actually give you a headache! Hmm. I’m sure there’s another gag here somewhere.
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Does etymology count?
As a prelude to this cartoon I was going to write some interesting facts about abacuses, but got sidetracked.
If, like me, you were fortunate (or misfortunate) enough to have a journalist as a parent you would probably have been subjected to rigorous criticism of everything wot you wrote or spoke. Correct English was thrust down my throat from a very early age, and, of course, I didn’t have the luxury of an internet search engine to confirm or refute the correctness of my grammar and spelling.
When I wrote down the word “abacuses” it didn’t feel right. The plural of abacus is surely abaci as in fungus/fungi and cactus/cacti. My ingrained fear of “getting it wrong” kicked in, and there was no way in the world I could continue without knowing which of the two was correct.
So after a quick surf on the net it would seem that either is acceptable. However, on balance I would come out in favour of abacuses. Etymologically speaking, if the root of the word is Latin you should substitute the “us” for “i” for the plural form, (abacus/abaci). But the word abacus has its roots in Arabic, not Latin, so this rule shouldn’t, or needn’t apply.
Well, I’ve got that off my chest, so here’s the gag, which is about abacuses…………
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