1661: Podium

2024-01-31T01:17:26Z

172.70.127.16: Grammar

{{comic
| number = 1661
| date = March 28, 2016
| title = Podium
| image = podium.png
| titletext = BREAKING: Senator's bold pro-podium stand leads to primary challenge from prescriptivist base.
}}

==Explanation==
A "{{w|podium}}" is a small platform like the one [[Cueball]] is standing '''on'''. This word originates from Greek ''podion'' meaning ''foot''.

A "{{w|lectern}}" is a stand for holding notes, like the one Cueball standing '''behind'''. In American English this stand may be also called a ''podium'', which is not backed up by etymology. See [http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/podium podium] and [http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/lectern lectern] in Oxford Learners Dictionaries. In medieval universities, the "lecturer" was not someone who gave talks, but literally one who read from the lectern, the latin root meaning "To read" - Lectio.

The comic is playing on a stereotypical politician, without any real beliefs, here represented by Cueball, but they want to appear to stand for something. Alternatively, this is what might happen if someone like Cueball (or the strip's author [[Randall]]), who tend to think literally and who get interested in and distracted by tangents, were running.

Thus, Cueball picks up what is, in some American circles, an argument: whether the standing desk used by public speakers should be called a "podium" or a "lectern." This argument is actually [http://www.messagemasters.squarespace.com/articles/what-is-a-lectern-or-podium.html common] among [http://mannerofspeaking.org/2012/03/10/podium-vs-lectern/ members] of {{w|Toastmasters International}} (see more [http://joyfulpublicspeaking.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-should-we-call-stage-furniture-on.html here]), though it would usually not rise to the level of needing to be part of a national discourse. And it is not only the Toastmasters that [http://www.platformgiant.com/podium-vs-lectern care about this].

The fact is, though the etymological definition is clear - the lectern is the desk that stands on the podium - and while the difference might be important if you were setting up an auditorium, in common American usage, it doesn't really matter.

The title text is presented as a breaking news that implies that a senator has taken a bold stand on the subject of podium vs. lectern (presumably Cueball, although it could also be someone else who has been rallied by Cueball's speech). The senator is pro- podium, meaning that he thinks the lectern should be called a podium. This leads to the people who follow a prescriptivist position to organize and put forward a political candidate to challenge this senator in the {{w|primaries}}.

The {{w|Linguistic prescription|prescriptivist}} position relies on rules rather than on usage. In this case a prescriptivist relies on etymology and would thus be pro-lectern. In the U.S., the primaries are used to select a single candidate from a particular party to represent that party at final election (whether national or on a state level). At the time of this comics release (2016-03-28) the {{w|United States presidential primary}} elections to determine the candidates for the {{w|United States presidential election, 2016}} was in full progress and not at all determined yet.

The title text is also a pun, as 'stand' is another word for an object like a lectern (e.g. as used by musicians to hold sheet music), and 'base' a word for something a stand or lectern might be placed on, as is a podium.

It is unclear from this comic which position Randall favors. He likes that rules are followed, but he also likes that it is easy to talk with people, especially friends. This was recently displayed in [[1643: Degrees]], see especially the last "benefits" in the third panel.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is speaking at a lectern standing on a podium.]
:Cueball: The American people are tired of politics as usual.
:Cueball: They're tired of-
:Cueball: Okay, brief tangent: is this thing a podium or a lectern? People say "podium" is wrong, but I also see it used that way in pretty formal contexts. Is usage just changing?
:Cueball: If elected, I will get to the bottom of this for once and for all.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2863: Space Typography

2023-12-07T03:41:20Z

172.70.127.16:

Are the dot's actually roughly in line with the distances?

[[Special:Contributions/172.71.135.78|172.71.135.78]] 21:31, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes they are. I eyeballed with a screenruler and calculated

* 0.40 AU for Mercury (Should be 0.37)
* 0.72 AU for Venus (0.72)
* 1 AU for earth (reference)
* 1.54 AU for Mars (1.52)
* 5.24 AU for Jupiter (4.98)

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.94|162.158.202.94]] 21:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

But what size font?[[User:Danger Kitty|Danger Kitty]] ([[User talk:Danger Kitty|talk]])
:129 trillion pt, give or take. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.109|141.101.105.109]] 23:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
:: Thanks for the decimal-point check. This is my worksheet: [https://i.postimg.cc/tRsmk3c6/Oprimistic-AU.gif Image] (open in new tab) [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:13, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The number of "e"s between h and r required to make Saturn line up is about 59 (tested using 27.2 pt font) [[User:Digin|Digin]] ([[User talk:Digin|talk]]) 22:17, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
: There are currently three different figures in the explanation for how many "e"s are needed. One says the title text is correct as written, brackets and ellipsis and all. One says 59. One says 85. They can't all be right. [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 13:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:: "They can't all be right." Well, they can, if they don't correspond to the same thing. Are we using the font size from the comic, or from the hover text? [[User:Rexon Mobile|Rexon Mobile]] ([[User talk:Rexon Mobile|talk]]) 15:39, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

:: I think the [...] has to be condensing what should be a longer title text. If is was "correct as written", that's an extra 3 dots that don't correspond to planets or anything in that region of space. So unless someone can find some objects in that part of space, I think "correct as written" should be vetoed. Also, can't use periods, colons, or semicolons -- would need to separate the main sentence from the title text addition using perhaps a dash or a comma (as long as a comma isn't as comet). [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 17:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
::: The sentence is using only the dots that are part of 'i's. Although the comic's text refers to "dots" without specifying that restriction, we don't have to assume that 'j's and punctuation must also correspond to solar system bodies. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 20:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:::: Who says only the dots over the i's are to be considered? The comic certainly doesn't specify that... it just says "use the dots as a map". Someone early on in the explanation made the ''assumption'' that only the dots on letters (i and j) could, but I don't believe that's a valid assumption. The fact that Randall doesn't end the sentence with a dot implies he knows that dot would count, so he didn't include it, though admittedly he did include a period on the title text. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I’m curious whether randall brute forced this, trained a neural network, or did it by hand. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.179|172.70.175.179]] 22:31, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
:He would probably answer: [[2173: Trained a Neural Net]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.217|172.70.42.217]] 22:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Trying to prep an image of a comparison between actual orbits and the comic, but it's taking longer than i'd like [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 23:20, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I assume brackets around (i) are for the Saturn's rings? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.71|162.158.102.71]] 23:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
:Ooh, good call. Put that in. [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 13:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:I assumed it was just a way to emphasize the i. In the comic, they are bolded, but that is not possible in title text. - [[Special:Contributions/172.68.27.133|172.68.27.133]] 22:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The long, rambling diatribe about literature seemed odd at first, but I think Charlotte Brontë would be proud she was able to represent Pluto and Charon. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.56|172.69.247.56]] 04:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:I don't understand. What's this about Charlotte Brontë? I don't see any reference to her in this comic.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.112|162.158.155.112]] 20:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:: It's a joke about umlauts. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.48|172.69.247.48]] 06:37, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the asteroid belt spans the area covered by the word "measure" [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.152|172.71.222.152]] 14:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:It would be nice if the word gaps were aligned that way, but there is no obvious alignment with either the edges of the asteroid belt, or the location of the Kirkwood gaps. The asteroid belt would stretch from the middle of the M in "measure" to the P in "space", with the most prominent Kirkwood gaps corresponding roughly to the letters A, R and E. [[User:Rexon Mobile|Rexon Mobile]] ([[User talk:Rexon Mobile|talk]]) 15:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:If he really wanted to represent the asteroids, I think he might have found a way to include a word like "riiii[...]iiight" so there would be lots of dots. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
::So '''a'''steroids are mostly between the As in "measure" and "space". Neat. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.114.63|172.71.114.63]] 19:18, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I added the table with the count of 'e's and adjusted the wording where it said 85 'e's from the Sun to say an extra 13 'e's in the word "here". I worked this out using an image from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#/media/File:Solar_System_distance_to_scale.svg) in PowerPoint but don't have upload privileges to post. Would be nice if someone could do that. [[User:Denver87|Denver87]] ([[User talk:Denver87|talk]]) 15:30, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Amazingly (assuming my math was right so please someone check) the sun to scale would be very close to the size of the actual dots used to represents the planets. (Planets wouldn't be visible.)

I don't see why the mnemonic for the order of the planets would be relevant to this comic. Should it be removed? [[User:Rexon Mobile|Rexon Mobile]] ([[User talk:Rexon Mobile|talk]]) 17:40, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
: Absolutely. No relevance to the comic. removed [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 18:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
:: I put it in because it was another mnemonic about the solar system. [*shrug*] [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 19:59, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
: what?! it should at least be mentioned. this comic wouldn't exist in a world without well-known solar system mnemonics :D
: [[User:Lordpipe|Lordpipe]] ([[User talk:Lordpipe|talk]]) 10:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

The mnemonic scans as "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", with the one hiccup that the emph'''a'''sis lands on the second syl'''la'''ble of mea'''sure'''. --[[User:NotaBene|NotaBene]] ([[User talk:NotaBene|talk]]) 22:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm so glad "dark black" is specified in the description, lest anyone get confused by looking for light black instead. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.16|172.70.127.16]] 03:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

== what if? news! ==

I can't find it anywhere here, but there is now an official what if youtube channel with (currently) two videos uploaded! Also, I think the most recent one *isn't* a duplicate of one already covered in other what if? media! (yeah i know this isnt related to the comic but this is where people will see it)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.175.61|162.158.175.61]] 23:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
:No, it's been covered somewhere in one of Randall's books. But for anyone who's wondering, here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/@xkcd_whatif
:: If it's been covered already, i find it strange that its first upload was November 30, 2023... [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 00:19, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
::: A quick reading of the video's comment indicate that it is taken from the first book, so "the most recent one *isn't* a duplicate of one already covered in other what if? media!" is incorrect, no matter when the free access was added on Youtube. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.107|162.158.233.107]] 08:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
:::: Oops :) that's what the "I think" was there for [[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.241|172.71.30.241]] 23:41, 6 December 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1661: Podium

Talk:2863: Space Typography