Joe's Myths

My most recent portfolio story was about cosplaying , so I wanted to learn a little more about that. Cosplay is a portmanteau of the words "costume" and "play." This didn't help much because I don't know what a portmanteau is, so that was my next stop. It is a blend of words that does not contain the whole of each word. It was contrasted with a compound, which I couldn't differentiate, so that was what I looked at next. A compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Neat, but what's a lexeme ? It is a unit of lexicon with a single meaning. An example of cosplay. Link

Mike was an average student. He could handle most things his classes through at him, though he didn't like to put forth much effort. As such, he tended to look for the easiest way to do his assignments, even if that meant cheating. One day, he was given an assignment in his math class. He wasn't paying much attention, so he simply took it home, googled it, and wrote down the answer he found online. When he turned it in the next day, he was very confused by the asonished look on his teacher's face. "Mike," she said, "this is incredible! When I told everyone to try to derive the grand unified theory, I didn't think anyone would be able to do it. You must be a genius! We have to show the principal and get you into a higher level class." This was not what Mike wanted to hear or do, but he didn't want to get in trouble by admitting he cheated on the assignment. He was put into the honors math and science classes, and struggled with them. He was on ...

The story of chicken little got gruesome. This brings back the lady who swallowed a fly bit of repetition, but also included some death because someone decided it was a good idea to trust a fox. Literally never trust a fox. This giant just likes killing. If you can't tell the difference between three strangers and your own kids, maybe there's a better time to randomly kill three of them. Then again, apparently the girls could've escaped any time they wanted to, so they just wanted to make sure that the giant killed his kids before they left. Another fox is trying to cause problems. Fortunately, someone finally stopped believing him and he was brutally murdered. However, it was just her word against his. She had a severed hand, but that's not a ton of evidence. So this is where the gingerbread man story comes from. This repetition theme is pretty common in these stories. There's a guy who regularly kidnaps and eats children, and everyone acknowledges his existence an...

The first story is a wonderful example of how much trouble you can get in for lying. It also plays on the whole "guess my name" bit from Rumpelstiltskin, or however you spell it. I've always thought that was a ridiculous bet to take, as there are essentially an infinite number of names, especially if it's three words long. Nonetheless, its fun to watch someone's plans get thwarted just when they think they've got it all going in their favor. The next story actually involves death, which is always nice. There's also a lot of trust, like who believes that anyone needs an axe to part hair? The girl deserved to die a little. The next story is like the little old lady who swallowed a fly or perhaps like green eggs and ham. Either way, it was interesting to see the progression of the chain of things that needed to happen. Inanimate objects that sing the accusations of their murderer made for a good story. The image from the first story. Link Bibliograp...

One day, there was a very proud seagull. He went around all day boasting that he was truly the strongest of all the animals. He was largely ignored at first, with everyone thinking he was simply trying to draw attention to himself. Eventually, he became enough of a nuisance that the other animals decided it was time for him to show his worth or shut his mouth. When asked to prove himself, he would simply challenge the other animal to a contest. Whoever could throw a rock the farthest would be considered stronger. All of the animals would take their shot at this, each thinking they could easily beat the small bird. After all, the rock weighed almost as much as the seagull himself! First came the lion, who proudly threw the rock over a hundred feet. The bird, still looking smug, simply picked up a rock and flew that far before dropping his rock just beyond the lion's. This pattern continued with the other animals. The dog would throw, and the seagull would drop his rock just beyond...

This week, I read some fables from Aesop . I wanted to know the actual definition of a fable , so I went to there from Aesop's page. One of the features of a fable is that its characters can be " legendary creatures ." This sounded awesome so I wanted to see what qualified. A Minotaur is an example of such a creature. A Minotaur. Link