Word Confusion: Cereal versus Serial

Revised as of
29 June 2023

Yes, I have run into a few of these cereal vs serial word confusions, but not many. I’m mostly doing a comparison ’cause I like the words . . .!

I do tend to devour books, and I particularly like serials, i.e., books in a series. Easy enough to notice if you look over my list of urban fantasy and paranormal romance series that I’ve read . . . *grin* . . . I have definitely been known to enjoy cookies and milk as I read, but you’ll never find me shredding a book into a bowl and pouring milk and sugar over it! Ick . . . the ink gets all blurry.

If you find you do have a problem telling the difference, remember that cereal and corn both start with a c.

Word Confusions . . .

. . .started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.

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Cereal	Serial
Various Grains by Peggy Greb, USDA Agricultural Research Service, is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. — Cereal is made from grains.	Serial Console Cable, D-sub 25 Male and Female Connectors with DIP Switches Integrated-0366 is Raimond Spekking‘s own work and is under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons.
Part of Grammar:
Adjective; Noun Plural for the noun: cereals	Adjective; Noun Plural for the noun: serials
Adjective: Describes a type of container Noun: A grain used for food, such as wheat, oats, or corn [Usually cereals] A grass producing such grain, grown as an agricultural crop Breakfast food made from roasted grain, typically eaten with milk	Adjective: Consisting of, forming part of, or taking place in a series [Music] Using transformations of a fixed series of notes [Computing; of a device] Involving the transfer of data as a single sequence of bits [Computing; of a processor] Running only a single task, as opposed to multitasking [Linguistics; of verbs] Used in sequence to form a construction [Grammar] A comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before and or or [Of a criminal] Repeatedly committing the same offense and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern [Of a person] Repeatedly following the same behavior pattern Denoting an action or behavior pattern that is committed or followed repeatedly Noun: A story or play appearing in regular installments on television or radio or in a magazine or newspaper [Usually serials; in a library] A periodical
Examples:
Adjective: Grab those cereal boxes. We had low yields for cereal crops this year. Noun: I just want a bowl of cereal. I want cereal! My favorite hot cereal in childhood was Cocoa Wheats.	Adjective: Magazines are a type of serial publication. They’re calling them serial killings now. Elizabeth Taylor’s short marriages were a type of serial monogamy. He’s a a suspected serial rapist. He was a serial adulterer. One example of using a serial comma is “an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect”. Noun: There’s a new three-part drama serial with Helen Mirren in it. I recently finished a serial of David Weber’s Honorverse. Someone suffering from OCD is exhibiting serial behavior. “Serial tasking is a kind of hybrid between multitasking and singletasking” (Lee).
Derivatives:
Adjective: noncereal Noun: noncereal	Adjective: nonserial Adverb: nonserially, serially Noun: nonserial, seriality
History of the Word:
Early 19th century, as an adjective, from the Latin cerealis, from Ceres, the name of the Roman goddess of agriculture.	1846 from series + -al, perhaps suggested by the French sérial.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Cereal versus Serial

Apple Dictionary.com

Lee, Joel. “Single- vs. Multitasking: What’s Best for Productivity?” Make Use of.com. 5 August 2015. Web. n.d. <http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/single-vs-multitasking-whats-best-productivity/>.

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Pinterest Photo Credits

The “Cereal Killers” post by Mitchell Wells at Horror Society, is a crack-up with sixteen different cereals horrorfied by artist Joe Simko. If you like, you can buy Cereal Killer cards over at Wax-Eye.com. At the least, go have a look, lol. Image used with Simko’s permission.