Guest Comic 2
13 Apr 2016 · page 591 of 1306
Dangit, Sid, that barely even rhymes!
Thanks again for Moon Cabal for the guest strips, very kindly given on a very busy week! Go and read Astral Aves!
I'll be back in business on Tuesday, at which point I'll shufty these pages to the front of the chapter. See you!
Comments (40)
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I predict an unvolesome number of rodent puns in the comments.
Rats off to Sid for cracking this tough nut of a case. And then feeding the metaphorical nut to metaphorical squirels.
yup.
webcomic comic readers and puns go hand in hand.
I don't believe that's how you spell 'relieved', but maybe it's one of those peculiar English spellings.
What was the part in the middle?
The murder on the train, the witches on the heath, and the suspicious manor? Mere red herrings keeping him from the crime at hand (or tooth).
Gaol and Vole don't rhyme at all, or am I having a sense of humour malfuntion? It's been a bad week. Is it that it only works when it's written down and Mr Malik is supposed to be saying it?
I think it's pronounced Gai-ole which would rhyme with the vole's -ole.
Um.. I think it's pronounced 'jail'. Soft 'g'.
No, it's a Middle English word for jail. Pronounced the way Monochrome wrote. Also, jail has a hard 'g', "juh" instead of "guh".
You've got that backwards. Hard G is the "guh" noise.
No, Sturzkampf is right. Gaol is an alternative spelling of jail, and it's pronounced the same way. It's not a Middle English word (although it does derive from one).
[http://www.grammarphobia.co...](http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/12/jail-gaol.html "http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/12/jail-gaol.html")
(Thus, 'vole gaol' is a gaol fail.)
Alternate universe and all that. Let's give Moon Cabal the benefit of the doubt and say that in this reality they are still using the old English pronunciation. But even so Mr Malik, I would recommend that you stick with the conjuring and don't try and branch out into stand-up.
That's correct.
I've heard it pronounced both ways in England.
It's jay-(o)l -- very short œ kind of o, hence the alternate "ai". People who say it differently don't realise they're wrong: it's the same G as in "Geoffrey" and it's not a goal. :)
Ummmm I'm not sure how 'wrong' it can be when it's regularly used in speech by people who speak the language all the time? Wouldn't that also make regional dialects wrong? I think languages naturally vary and change so I'm not really comfortable with saying a word is wrong. To me that would cut off a lot of English.
Rippon Gaol -- said "jail". shrugs One of the most common mishaps is to transpose the a and o when reading to say either "goal" or "jole". But, it is a mishap: "gaol" uses Ænglisc spelling conventions, not even Middle English ones. It's one of the oldest phonetic mistakes in the book, actually.
Eh, I barely understand spoken english anyway, so I have no idea what he meant XD
I hope there was a decent bounty on that vole.
I hope so too, my cat brings me many.
Nicola won't be laughing when Sid becomes famous for taking down the floral terrorist ring of Squeakers the $10,000 vole outlaw. The American authorities have been trying to catch him for years after the white house rose massacre.
Are you sure that's a vole and not one of the dreaded Lemming Men of Yull?
And I see you have a different kind of Vole for your icon. Great comic.
Yullai! Popacapinyo!
Die?! That is the last thing that I shall do!
Anyvay, vho iz hyu callink human, ratty?
Are we sure that one of the ladies wasn't actually rather young and wet and sort of dressed like a hippie?
Horray Magrat.
Haha, I didn't expect it to be resolved like that.
Yay for nice, helpful sorcresses.
Welp, I have just finished binge-reading Astral Aves, and MY GOD is it good. It is now my second favorite webcomic, after Widdershins, of course.
bye sid.
I think that was a stretch. I'll only throw one shoe at you.
.... I don't get it
Me either. Can someone please explain?
Unless I'm gravely mistaken, it's an interesting joke based on the visual similarity between the words 'vole' and 'gaol'. It might also be based on pronunciation; maybe in that part of Britain, the words sound like 'vail jail'?
Personally, I suppose I might have suggested Sid follow up the initial line with a reference to 'vulgate', incorporating references to a high-falutin' word for 'slang' and, again, 'vole gaol' since so many prisons in the UK have names that end in '-gate'...?
we can has update plz?
I've updated twice since this! Go look at the main site! [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/")
ta for that!! done found and read. kewl!!
I am unreasonably sad that the rhyming punchline here doesn't work out loud because 'gaol' is (as far as I know) just pronounced 'jail'.