Friday 29 March 2024

Psychiatrist has a silent P

Barnaby, like many before him, has been thinking about English spelling and how irregular and unnecessary much of is. On the understanding that big things start small, he is now considering whether to start the revolution by refusing to incorporate unnecessary letters or illogical spelling in any of his future riting.

Hensforth, Barnaby wil only aply the minimum efort to spel any of his wurds in the customry manor, eschuing convenshun, histry and tradishon. He estimates that this wil save him aproximately  wun per sent of the leters he normaly has to tipe, with a consekwent saving of wun per sent of the ink and paper used to print them, thus preserving many trees and conserving natural resorses in adishun to redusing the number of keystroks he wil need to make and conserving his own energy.

Of cors, this wil make his books wun per sent shorter, tho no kwiker to reed.


Fortunately, all of his current books were written before this revolution began, making life more straightforward for readers used to dealing with conventional English spelling. Any errors are therefore entirely unintentional and the fault of the author, except where they have been introduced intentionally.

Why not try ‘Out of Time’ a full-length novel about two men whose timelines get inextricably mixed. I can’t guarantee any misspellings, but you can enjoy searching. You can find it in paperback or eBook format at Amazon here https://tinyurl.com/BarnabyOutofTime

(Also available at Apple, Smashwords, Kobo etc)




 

Monday 25 March 2024

Mr. Owl ate my metal worm

OK, the title drew you in, as it was supposed to do, but what is it all about?

Try reading it backwards. It's a palindrome. A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards. Some word examples are rotor, civic, level, radar, rotator, deified. Well known phrases include 'A man, a plan, a canal Panama', supposedly written about the Panama canal, and 'Madam, I'm Adam' which was probably not written in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps the most well known example, that most folk will have heard of is implausibly attributed to Napoleon, alluding to his exile on the isle of Elba, 'Able was I ere I saw Elba'.

A few of the better examples of whole sentence palindromes include, 'Was it a car or a cat I saw?', 'Do geese see God?', and the title of this blog entry, 'Mr Owl ate my metal worm.' (Punctuation, spaces and capital letters are usually ignored).

There have been whole novels written as palindromes. Satire: Veritas by David Stephens, and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo by Lawrence Levine. How much sense they make in either direction is for the reader to decide.




Barnaby Wilde's novels are designed to be read in one direction only, from front to back and he would like to assure you that they make perfect sense to folk with an open mind and a surreal sense of humour. 

Why not try 'I Keep Thinking It's Tuesday'? You can download it as an eBook from Amazon

FREE at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0067YXRSU





Thursday 14 March 2024

Rules are for breaking, or are they?

 Who'd have thought it? Apparently there is a rule, which has very few exceptions, about the order to be followed when listing multiple adjectives before a noun. We do it automatically, without realising that we're even doing it. It just sounds right. For example, my long red chinese silk jacket sounds fine, but my silk chinese red long jacket ... ? Well, you just never would.

Apparently, multiple adjectives are always ranked in this order: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose.

There is an exception to this rule, which is even more surprising. It's called the rule of ablaut reduplication. (Don't go. I promise this is more interesting than it sounds). This rule says that the vowels i, a, and o always follow this order, i then a then o. Don't believe me? Just think of a few examples; flip flop, i before o; shiplap, i before a; big bad dog, i before a before o, (which contradicts the rule about adjectival hierarchy because bad is an opinion and should come before big, which is a size).

Fortunately, Barnaby doesn't mind in which order you read his books, even the series which are numbered sequentially can be read in any order and still make perfect sense. You can find out about all of Barnaby's books at www.barnabywilde.uk  




Sunday 3 March 2024

Read an eBook week 2024


Read an eBook week is now officially running at Smashwords. Don’t miss the massive celebratory sale going on right now @Smashwords! There are deep discounts on thousands of books by hundreds of authors in every genre imaginable, but only until March 9. Check it out at

  https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos/ #ebookweek24 #Smashwords


All Barnaby Wilde eBooks are available FREE or discounted at

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/barnabywilde


What are you waiting for?

Saturday 17 February 2024

 New Website ..............


Barnaby has a new website at www.barnabywilde.uk  with links to all his currently published books and links to the most commonly used online booksellers.  Most of the books are available in eBook or paperback format, including his most recent series There Still be Dragons (volumes 1 to 3). A set of scarcely credible stories that mix mediaeval and modern ideas in comic, not to say, absurd fashion.

A kingdom, far, far away, across the seas and beyond the mountains, ruled by a very short king with a very tall daughter. These stories are not for the faint hearted. Only suitable for persons with a sense of humour that borders on madness.


Ten ludicrous stories in each volume.





Friday 20 March 2020

60% off LOVE collection today. Corvid19 special


Special One-Month Sale at Smashwords, Authors Give Back, Starts Friday March 20.

Smashwords is kicking off Authors Give Back, a special sale that runs through April 20. If you're self isolating and can't get to the library, you can still download ebooks to read on Kindle, smartphone or PC. There are thousands of FREE books at Smashwords and many more that are being specially reduced this month.




Use code AGB60 for 60% discount on Barnaby Wilde 'Love' collection here.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/520126




The following Barnaby Wilde books are FREE at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/barnabywilde






Monday 9 March 2020

Grow Your Own Man


Grow Your Own Man the latest e-book from Barnaby Wilde is now available for download at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1008516

                         
 
Could you grow a real man from a bean? Find out how Emily fares when she responds to a small classified ad in her local newspaper. This collection of ten 'stand alone' short stories reveals some of the pleasures and pitfalls of her horticultural experiments. How do you get rid of a bean man when he's outlived his usefulness? Why do Emily's men seem to have an aversion to mushrooms? How does 'Spider' know so much about the moon? What's so special about Las Vegas? Answers to all these questions, and more, inside 'Grow Your Own Man', a humorous look at the benefits and disadvantages of having green fingers.                       
                                                
Available e-book formats: epub mobi pdf lrf pdb txt html