Cereal, Serial

Cereal is a member of the grass family but cultivated as a food crop because it is high in nutritional value, and its seeds (grains) are edible (and usually the husk the dried grass is used as cattle fodder).

Cereal is a grain.

The common cereal crops used as food are wheat, barley, rye, oats, maize, buckwheat, millet, and rice.

Cereal is the breakfast food prepared with one or the other grain: corn flakes are made of cereal grains such as maize.

Cereal, apart from noun, also functions as an adjective meaning relating to edible grains. Cereals are used in making cereal beverages (beers and lagers), and cereal bars (healthy bar unlike a chocolate bar!); and we have items used for holding cereals: cereal bowl, and cereal box.

Cereal is pronounced with soft c (si).

Cereal comes from the Latin word Cerealis: meaning related to Ceres the goddess of agriculture (akin to goddess Annapurna), harvest and seasons.

In mythological context, Ceres is the daughter of Saturn and Ops; Jupiter falls in lovewith her, and they conceived a baby named Proserpina.

The countries in the rim of Mediterranean Sea claim as the goddess of their land!

Cerean is a person hailing from Ceres, an inhabitant of Ceres

Ceres is a dwarf planet and the closest to the Sun located between Mars and Jupiter, making it the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system.

Cereal and serial are homophones (sound the same).

Serial is a story, fictional and non-fictional, published in magazines, and broadcast on television in regular instalments unlike a movie.

Serial is a periodical.

Serial as an adjective refers to something published or broadcast in an instalment such as once in a week; something forming a series or part of series, in a row. In music, seraill refers to using series as the basis of a composition.

Though serial and series are used interchangeably but there is a difference.

A serial is a single story presented in separate instalments such Ramayana which was broadcast on DD in late 1980s.

Series is a set of separate stories featuring the same characters.

Malgudi Days (the short stories of R K Narayan) were broadcast on DD using the same background (set in Malgudi) and using the recurring characters like the Talkative Man.

Serialism is a technique used in composing music which is a series or succession of related notes as the basis like the 12-not serialism.

The derivatives of serial are serialize or serialise, serialized, serializing, serializes (verbs), and we have compound words: serial numbers, and serial killers.