1767: US State Names

|< < Prev Comic #1767 (December 2, 2016) Next > >|

US State Names

Title text: Technically DC isn't a state, but no one is too pedantic about it because they don't want to disturb the snakes.

Explanation

This is just a silly map. Randall has taken a map of the United States of America labeled "Geography Challenge: Name all 50 States" and filled in the states with words that sound similar to the states' names.

Fictional State	Actual State	Explanation
Wilwheaton	Washington	Will Wheaton is an actor from Washington
Organs	Oregon
Cafeteria	California
Fallout New Vegas	Nevada	Fallout New Vegas is set in Nevada
Idolatry	Idaho
mount -a	Montana	A command to mount all disk volumes
Wysiwyg	Wyoming	Acronym What You See Is What You Get.
Uhaul	Utah	U-Haul is a company where you can rent vans.
Verizona	Arizona	Verizon has a shared "Rizon" with Arizona. Randall presumably enjoys this.
Namaste	New Mexico	Namaste is a Hindu greeting.
Hexxus	Texas	The antagonist of Ferngully. FernGully is said to be the model for the later film "Avatar".
Okay	Oklahoma	OK is the state's abbreviation.
Candice	Kansas
Colocated	Colorado
Nebrunswick	Nebraska	New Brunswick, A Canadian province
Dakota	South Dakota
More Dakota	North Dakota
Minestrone	Minnesota	Minestrone is a thick vegetable soup, originating in Italia.
Wainscot	Wisconsin
Iota	Iowa
Sk8rbois	Illinois	"Skater Boys"
Mossouri	Missouri	The single different letter might be borrowed from Montessori, as in Montessori schools.
Arkanoids	Arkansas	An arcade game.
Louisa	Louisiana
Misstate	Mississippi
Bandana	Alabama
Thennessy	Tennessee
Kennedy	Kentucky
That Other One	Indiana
Mishy	Michigan
Oh Hi	Ohio
Pencilmania	Pennsylvania
Newark	New York	A mispronunciation of New York. Possible reference to William Gibson's works.
Vermouth	Vermont
New Hamper	New Hampshire
Spanish Maine	Maine
Masseuses	Massachusetts
Roald Dahl	Rhode Island
Connectfour	Connecticut
Nude Juggalos	New Jersey
Delorean	Delaware
Maybelline	Maryland
District of Colubrids	District of Columbus	The Colubridae are the biggest family of snakes, accounting for about two thirds of the world's species.
Wyvern	West Virginia
Virjayjay	Virginia	Virginia is similar to vagina. Vajayjay is slang for vagina.
Sweet Caroline	North Carolina
South Caroline	South Carolina
George	Georgia
Fyoridor	Florida	Possibly derived from the Russian name Fyodor, as in Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Alberta	Alaska	A Canadian province.
Kawaii	Hawaii	A Japanese term for cute commonly romanized similar to Hawaii.
Bandana	Alabama

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

| Alabama => Bandana | | Alaska => Alberta | | Arizona => Verizona | | Arkansas => Arkanoids | | California => Cafeteria | | Colorado => Colocated | | Connecticut => Connect Four | | Delaware => Delorean | | District of Columbia => District of Colubrids | | Florida => Fyoridor | | Georgia => George | | Hawaii => Kawaii | | Idaho => Idolatry | | Illinois => SK8RBOIS | | Indiana => That Other One | | Iowa => Iota | | Kansas => Candice | | Kentucky => Kennedy | | Louisiana => Loisa | | Maine => Spanish Maine | | Maryland => Maybelline | | Massachusetts => Masseuses | | Michigan => Mishy | | Minnesota => Minestrone | | Mississippi => Misstate | | Missouri => Mossouri | | Montana => mount -a | | Nebraska => Nebrunswick | | Nevada => Fallout New Vegas | | New Hampshire => New Hamper | | New Jersey => Nude Juggalos | | New Mexico => Namaste | | New York => Newark | | North Carolina => Sweet Caroline | | /South Carolina => South Caroline | | Ohio => Oh Hi | | Oklahoma => Okay | | Oregon => Organs | | Pennsylvania => Pencilmania | | Rhode Island => Roald Dahl | | South Dakota => Dakota | | /North Dakota => More Dakota | | Tennessee => Thennessy | | Texas => Hexxus | | Utah => Uhaul | | Vermont => Vermouth | | Virginia => Virjayjay | | Washington => Willwheaton | | West Virginia => Wyvern | | Wisconsin => Wainscot | | Wyoming => WYSIWYG |

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

I'm wondering whether this could be a joke about autocorrect/suggested completion as found in smartphone texting apps. Dromaeosaur (talk) 08:06, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

But would autocorrect replace Texas with Hexxus?--Blaisorblade (talk) 09:02, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia Will Wheaton is not from Washington 162.158.133.150 08:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

He is most famously (that is, to pen-and-paper rpg gamers as well as those young enough not to have watched TNG and old enough to have watched The Big Bang Theory) a player, fan, and long-time celebrity face of D&D, a tabletop roleplaying game presently made by Wizards of the Coast, who ARE based in Washington; the Seattle coast is "The Coast" the name refers to. That's the immediate reference I got, but I'm nervous enough about adding this note that I'm not sure I should go editing the article itself.

I think the starting point is the ambiguity of the standard "Name all 50 states" challenge. I'm no native speaker but "Name" means both "invent a new name" and "give the correct name for", and Randall is misunderstanding this on purpose. Maybe that's obvious to some, but it seems the sort of thing worth explaining here?--Blaisorblade (talk) 09:02, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Clever! That's certainly true, it could be a pun on the word "name". Although Randall has done similar things in the past (putting objects in states, reordering states, drawing physically cumbersome bicycles) that suggest he likes playing with the idea that people who sort of know how things work but ultimately end up mixing things up and creating something that's not all that accurate (but nonetheless very interesting and creative). 172.68.79.81 18:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

"Colocated" is technically misspelled (it's either "co-located" or "collocated"), though that could be for the sake of matching it to "Colorado." However, the word is used in many situations other than "co-location center" (e.g. workers being collocated in the same office), so unless Colorado is particularly notable for its co-location centers, I don't think it makes sense to claim that that's what it's specifically referring to. –PhantomLimbic (talk) 09:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, it looks like "colocated" is a spelling used specifically within the industry, so perhaps the claim is warranted after all. –PhantomLimbic (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Collocate is not a synonym for co-locate; collocate (pronounced like "kallocate") has the sense of juxtaposing things with each other, especially placing them side by side. This is subtly different from co-locate (housing them in the same location). "Colocate" is an industry shortening of "co-locate", not a misspelling of "collocate". 108.162.215.47 01:01, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Isn't it a challenge to correctly name all the states with clues given as to the proper name?162.158.91.95 10:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the challenge is supposed to be a blank map that someone has filled out in red pen. The joke is that whoever filled it out does pretty much know all of the states but isn't really clear on their actual names.108.162.238.50 10:34, 2 December 2016 (UTC) Right, I get you. Something a bored Geography teacher may or may not find amusing when it comes to giving out detentions for the week :)162.158.91.95 10:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Is Georgia / George a reference to the kings of georgia (of which 9 were named george)? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Georgian_monarchs) 141.101.98.253 10:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I would have thought of the king of England when the colonies decided to declare independence -- or, for that matter, his grandfather King George II, after whom the state was named -- before thinking of kings from the other side of the Northern Hemisphere. But who knows. George is a common enough name that without word from Randall, it could equally be said he was making a reference to George Lucas, or to the name the Abominable Snowman wanted to give his "own little bunny rabbit." Nyperold (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

About "OH HI", I've understood it as a reference to the cult movie "The Room" (2003) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368226), where the main character Johnny greets the other ones with a "Oh hi!". But that's maybe only my view. 108.162.226.112 12:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it's within plausibility for OH HI to be a reference to the logic game 0h h1 [1]. Toss that possibility around? --108.162.212.96 23:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

As a Hoosier, I think that the name given to Indiana is on point. 108.162.238.45 14:06, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't the table be alphabetical and the transcript be in geographical order (rather than the other way around as it is now)?108.162.219.83 15:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm fairly confident that "Mossouri" is not a typo, but rather a reference to Katie Mossouris, the Microsoft security researcher who created the bug bounty program. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Moussouris. 108.162.245.54 18:06, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Dear, it's old to complain of xkcd's various quality drops, but I think this is my turn. A good number of recent comics have just been variously exaggerated text lists of stuff. Randall might just as well switch to a written format; pictorial context is becoming less and less necessary for his comics by the week. ~~~~ 162.158.203.149 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Never read Cerebus the Aardvark, did you? --172.68.78.133 14:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking that at least in part, it's a commentary on what the average American middle-schooler knows about their country's geography. 173.245.52.98 10:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there is no 'ee' sound in Michigan, also of note the Carolina's are named for one the British King Charles's although I'm not sure which, and Wysiwyg has been used in xkcd before... Somewhere108.162.237.88 21:14, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed re Michigan and removed. Miamiclay (talk) 23:11, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Newark? He named New York after Newark, New Jersey? Yea, I got your Newark right here, buddy! --172.68.78.133 14:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

For me, Randall's comic is a gentle-but-hilarious depiction of the general imprecision of human cognition --- pretty much every story that we tell, and every fact we remember, arrives in our awareness in the foggy forms that this comic makes fun of. John Sidles (talk) 02:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

"Spanish Maine" is ironic given the sinking of the naval ship of the same name and the inspired rally, "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" 172.68.79.81 18:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Should there be a link to the Exoplanets comic? Also related to the chaos that arises when people are allowed to 'name' things (https://xkcd.com/1253/) - 162.158.58.88 23:08, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The explanation for "More Dakota" says that "More Dakka" (which I believe to be referenced here) is possibly too obscure to be a shoutout here, as XKCD does not usually mention Warhammer 40,000. However, there is a TV Trope named "More Dakka", and it is well-established that Randall is an avid reader of TV Tropes. (This is also the only way I know about "More Dakka".) Mathmannix (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty to make a description list out of the table (and sort it alphabetically), so it is easier to read on small screens. The original order is still in the wikitext as a comment, in case this is preferred by the original authors. (also, if this is 'too much', feel free to revert) //gir.st/ (talk) 11:10, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Could 'Fyoridor' be derived from 'corridor'? --Ата ^(talk) 11:38, 7 October 2018 (UTC)