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Talk:2665: America Songs

2022-08-30T22:32:36Z

172.69.70.41:

Many of these rely on "ia"/"ie"/"io" serving as the 3rd and 4th syllables, so every song would be sung like "God Bless <s>Olimpiya</s> Algeriya". Virginia Beach appears to be the only one to escape this.--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 19:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:As a Washingtonian, I pronounce Olympia without the diphthong (so four syllables; the “a” being distinct). It’s probably a dialect thing, and some pronunciations are more common than others, but as long as one fairly-common pronunciation scans, I think it’s fine. [User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 03:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::Alright, bad example. Skipping it is unheard of in areas further south. Do you (or a large part of the US) fully pronounce most dipthongs, [https://www.howmanysyllables.com/syllables/syria Syria with three syllables], etc.?--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 07:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I can't speak for the rest of the US, but in the case of places I usually pronounce the extra syllable. Virginia is the one exception I can think of right now. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 21:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
:There are also some locations with three-syllable names, such as Detroit Lakes or Fergus Falls (both located northwest of St. Cloud, Minnesota) which, although not listed by Randall, will also work and not use the noted syllables. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 02:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

This phrase, "scans to", has me confused. Can the explanation address what this is supposed to mean?
--anon 16:23, 29 August 2022
:You betcha [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 20:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
::What does scanning mean in relation to sung verse? Just syllables and their stress pattern, or is their more? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.28|172.69.34.28]] 23:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I'm not familiar with the term, but I assume it's related to scansion. If I'm right, it's probably just syllables and stress pattern. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 06:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::::- There was a young man from Japan
::::- Whose limericks never would scan.
::::- And when they asked why,
::::- He said "I do try!
::::- But when I get to the last line I try to fit in as many words as I can."
::::...though – and this is me talking, not the famous limerick – after making sure your poetry rhymes (if you want it to; and/or assonate, consonate, etc) and scans (some words are tricky, as mentioned, according to dialect/accent/etc) you also need to check the meter (does it obviously flow and split in patterns like the iambic one where "da-DUM da-DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da-DUM" might be how it works with word-boundries).
::::You might be wise to avoid words like "vehicle" with theoretically, two to four syllables and all kinds of stress-patterns and vowel-sounds (c.f. stereotypical Deep South, north British, Aussie, etc), at least as an early (establishing) element. Maybe you can set up its far more knowable rhyme/scan/metering partner first and rely upon the reader adopting the intended variation (give or take the relatively opposing strengths of writer/reader accents, etc) after being given the prior clue.
::::I would personally say the scan(sion) is mostly the simple syllable count, and may need some writing tricks ("learned" as in "I learned something" and "learn'ed" as in "a very learned person") to convey well during sight-reading or initial internalised read-through.
::::On that, I personally have some problems reading "-ya" syllables as singular (depending upon what the preceding symbol is, I would consider it a "-ee-ah"/"-ee-uh" (or mid-point) with a cut-down "-ee-"), while I have no problem with the "-lm" dipthong/whatever (c.f. Northern Irish tends to clearly enunciate as "fill-um" for 'film', whilst I might almost consider it a syllable/beat of its own). But I suspect the right voice (internal or external) could convince me of any of those examples as given, eventually... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.105|162.158.159.105]] 13:46, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Aussie here: we tend to say (and sing) "Australia" with three syllables. For example, see the [https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/australian-national-anthem-scores Australian national anthem]. Occasionally two syllables: Straya mate!! But saying it with four syllables is perhaps an American thing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.207|162.158.2.207]] 21:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:Interesting! It probably is a dialect thing. As an American, I've always pronounced it with four. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 21:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

In the comic, Saskatchewan is spelled as Sasketchewan. Might be fixed later?

Just putting this here: https://www.quora.com/A-lot-of-place-names-in-the-USA-have-four-syllables-Minnesota-Chattanooga-Albuquerque-Tallahassee-Talladega-Massachusetts-Massapequa-Mississippi-Cincinnati-Sacramento-Indiana-Alabama-Oklahoma-etc-Is-there-a (with the understanding that "scanning" doesn't necessarily mean only the number of syllables, e.g. Al-BUH-ker-key has the wrong stress pattern.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.49|172.70.210.49]] 21:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
:Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 22:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
::''AlBUquerque, AlBUquerque, God shed his grace on theee...!'' [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 22:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to craft a Wikidata query for all the place names with four syllables following the .'.. stress pattern? We should probably say how many there are. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 23:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Jurassic park, Jurassic park, how lovely are thy branches… [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The pronunciation of Vidalia, Georgia, is "vi-DAIL-ya" -- three syllables, not four. It doesn't actually scan like "America". Seems like the comic is assuming the pronunciation is "vee-DAHL-ee-ah", which would scan.ing
:And the age old question of whether an optional schwa constitutes a syllable rears its head. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.161|172.69.134.161]] 05:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
::I came to say a similar thing about Montpelier. In Vermont, at least, it has three syllables. [[User:CeramicMug|CeramicMug]] ([[User talk:CeramicMug|talk]]) 10:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I simply wish to note the similarity to "Thighs" (#321), which is one of my favorite xkcd comics and one that I find comes to mind surprisingly often.

For changing the tune of a song but not the lyrics (or the lyrics in entirety but not the tune), see the title text to 788: The Carriage [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 11:24, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Shirley [surely] there must be some overlap between XKCD and "Weird Al" Yankovic fans, but no one has yet mentioned that Randall missed the "American Idiot"/"Canadian Idiot" overlap, mentioning the former but not the latter? '''--BigMal''' // [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.87|172.70.114.87]] 14:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Needs a better explanation of "scans" (short for Scansion). Something something ''Syllables'', something something ''stress pattern'', something something ''rhythm''. I'd write it myself, but no one wants a 30 page thesis on the topic. PS to those complaining certain locations usually use a three syllable pronunciation... poetic license frequently stretches (usually middle or penultimate) syllables to cover two beats, even without changing vowel length (although it's more common to do so). At least, in English; some other languages are not as flexible in this regard. --- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.79|172.70.214.79]] 16:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Should it be noted that one of the implicitly suggested songs, "America", from West Side Story, replaced with "LaGuardia", was in fact done in the Saturday Night Live sketch "Airport Sushi" in 2020? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.41|172.69.70.41]] 22:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Talk:1963: Namespace Land Rush

2018-03-08T21:15:09Z

172.69.70.41:

* Ahh, he left off '''root''' under Causing More Trouble. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 05:41, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
** Also "'''null'''"... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.237|162.158.62.237]] 21:09, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I'm very disappointed he left out dotnotreplay@... --05:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC)~
* Is "gibberish name no one can pronounce" a reference to xkcd? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.64|108.162.215.64]] 05:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* No '''test''' included. Frankly speaking I have seen people using '''testtest''','''testtesttesttest''', and so on, up to the maxiumn allowed character limit. [[User:Jackomatt|Jackomatt]] ([[User talk:Jackomatt|talk]]) 06:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* Took me some time to type the transcript. Randall made it quite hard. [[User:QATEKLYXM|Klyxm]] ([[User talk:QATEKLYXM|talk]]) 06:38, 5 March 2018
:* I came here just to see if the transcript had "..." or "…" in the last one -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.133|162.158.154.133]] 17:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
* The thing at the bottom-right, he wrote "forward slash" but used a backslash. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 08:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
:*It's just to mess with you. [[User:QATEKLYXM|Klyxm]] ([[User talk:QATEKLYXM|talk]]) 08:49, 5 March 2018
* Null! Where's null? [[User:PenguinF|PenguinF]] ([[User talk:PenguinF|talk]]) 09:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I think this whole comic is a reference to the video Worst Wifi Password Ever [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLE7zsJk4AI] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.76|162.158.238.76]] 11:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
This is analogous to the way that land was distributed in America
There is so much wrong with that sentence. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.25|162.158.154.25]] 12:26, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I think is what he means by rtl override: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/09/right-to-left-override-aids-email-attacks/ and I agree surprised he didn’t include the null character; maybe because it’s so hard to get it to actually reach the service? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.136|172.68.54.136]] 15:24, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* Emojis don't work in databases? They should be treated no differently from any other UNICODE characters. They would be hard to type if you're using an OS/browser that doesn't have a convenient Emoji-picker, but I would think that they should work as long as the server isn't filtering them out. But I've never deployed a service like this so there may be something important I'm missing here. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 17:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
:: The "emoji not work" refers specifically to emojis requiring four characters when encoded in UTF-8, as many programs including databases like MySQL [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/charset-unicode-utf8mb4.html used to only support three-byte UTF-8 characters]. There are emoji which fits into three bytes and non-emoji characters requiring four bytes, but for most people, support for four-byte UTF-8 is equivalent to support of (new) emoji. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
:: (Obviously, when you want to test database, you should be creative and instead of "any" emoji try something like "fairy girl with dark skin tone" [https://emojipedia.org/woman-fairy-dark-skin-tone/ 🧚🏿‍♀️] - that's five UTF characters, 18 bytes total, and is supposed to render as single character) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
::: Whether it renders as a single character is only relevant if you're trying to render it. The database only cares about a name as a sequence of characters, it shouldn't care how many glyphs they correspond to. (And almost related: I vaguely recall the guys behind emoj.li saying that the most common complaint they got was that the most obvious single-character usernames were already taken) -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.133|162.158.154.133]] 17:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
:::: Most databases support sorting 😊. Also, attempts to store four-byte character into three-byte UTF column really damaged it - although, obviously, storing it to binary column would not, it's just that username is rarely binary column. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Someone once told me that on old email databases, you could send a message to "*@example.com" and it would send the message to everyone with an account on that domain. No idea if its true or not, but it seems like the username "*" could cause problems. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.16|162.158.75.16]] 19:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

So '''OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver''' actually is "<<\/HTML>> or is it just supposed to be </HTML>? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.180|141.101.105.180]] 13:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
:: Do you really think there's a definitely correct answer to that question? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.38|162.158.155.38]] 14:25, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

* I am not confident enough about this to make the edit myself, but wouldn't the names listed in '''Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code)''' (user, guest, etc) be used not so much to trying to fool other people, but because those names are often used as placeholders when the site is in development, and may therefore still have odd/altered permissions, allowing potential malicious access assuming the devs were lazy? [[User:Snowblinded|Snowblinded]] ([[User talk:Snowblinded|talk]]) 18:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

* Also '''true'''. And '''false'''. And '''Schrödinger'sCat'''.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.41|172.69.70.41]] 21:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)