HOMOPHONE OF THE MONTH
“What’s a homophone?” I hear you ask. Well, you’ll already have seen a small selection of homophones if you’ve visited our home page. A homophone is one of two or more words, such as gorilla and guerrilla, which are pronounced the same but differ in meaning or spelling or both. Here’s this month’s example:

cereal, serial

“The police have said that the victim was stabbed and are now concerned that they may have a cereal killer on the loose.”

I beg your pardon? Is someone going around stabbing packets of Corn Flakes?

The correct version should be:

“The police have said that the victim was stabbed and are now concerned that they may have a serial killer on the loose.”

WORD JUMBLE
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

COOKBOOK STIRS UP A RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Those of you who are avid viewers of the BBC’s Have I Got News For You may have recently seen the report on the embarrassing error in an Australian cookbook. A recipe in the book mistakenly called for the addition of “salt and freshly ground black people” instead of “salt and freshly ground black pepper”. This unfortunate error resulted in the publisher having to reprint 7,000 books at a reported cost of £12,000.