explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1415: Ballooning

2015-05-05T19:30:28Z

173.245.56.200: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1415
| date = September 1, 2014
| title = Ballooning
| image = ballooning.png
| titletext = Time to dance in front of Mary Jane! If I'm lucky, she'll turn out not to practice pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism!
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Spider-Man}} is a fictional superhero in comic books published by Marvel Comics, and has been the star of a number of television shows and film. The {{w|Spider-Man theme song}}, first used for the 1967 cartoon show, includes the words, "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can". However, at other points, the theme song explains some things Spider-Man can do that a real spider obviously couldn't, such as crime-fighting. Randall is pointing out that while the abilities attributed to Spider-Man make a good superhero story [http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=4947 Spider-Men #3], they are not real abilities of a spider.

This comic depicts [[Cueball]] as a far more realistic Spider-Man, behaving and thinking much more closely to a real spider than the Spider-Man from the comics. Cueball is shown {{w|Ballooning (spider)|ballooning}}[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3gTAwssxQ], a trait used by spiders to move between locations, rather than swinging on web cords as in the comics and films. As he is floating, he sees a good spot to land, eat some bugs and make an egg sac. Again this contrasts the real life of a spider with Spider-Man, who would doubtless be rushing to fight crime or save a pretty girl.

Only female spiders create an egg sac. Male spiders spin a sperm web in order to transfer their sperm from their {{w|epigastric furrow}} into their {{w|pedipalp}}s (reproductive organ located on the front two appendages, in the position where a scorpion would have pincers), which will then be used to transfer the sperm into the female during copulation. Cueball/Spider-Man, being nominally male, should in fact be looking for a place to create a sperm web, not an egg sac. However, thanks to being featured in childrens books, the actions of female spiders are much more widely known.

The title text refers to the mating ritual of some spiders, in which the male performs a dance to court the female. Mary-Jane is the third love interest and Peter's eventual wife in the Spider-Man stories, and so Cueball is planning to court her by dancing in front of her. In doing so he hopes that he is lucky, and she doesn't eat him before copulating with him, as {{w|sexual cannibalism}} is a trait associated with spiders.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown floating on the wind, attached to a large balloon. The balloon is made of spider silk.]
:Cueball: Ooh, that looks like a good spot to land, eat some bugs, and make an egg sac!
:♫ ''Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can'' ♪
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1233: Relativity

2015-03-11T21:07:12Z

173.245.56.200: /* Transcript */: "Ponderous" doesn't mean "engaged in deep thought." It means slow, clumsy, dull, or laborious. "Pensive" better describes the way Einstein looks here.

{{comic
| number = 1233
| date = July 3, 2013
| title = Relativity
| image = relativity.png
| titletext = It's commonly believed that Lorentz contraction makes objects appear flatter along the direction of travel. However, this ignores light travel times. In fact, a fast-moving butt would appear rotated toward the observer but not substantially distorted. Shakira was right.
}}

==Explanation==
''Gedankedank'' is a humorous {{w|portmanteau}} of ''Gedankenexperiment'' (German for "{{w|thought experiment}}") and ''badonkadonk'' (slang term for [http://urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=badonkadonk an attractive, round butt]).

{{w|Albert Einstein}} often used thought experiments to explore scientific hypotheses too impractical or impossible to actually perform, in order to examine their consequences. Moving close to the speed of light, '''c''', is nigh-impossible with existing technology; and according to Einstein's theory of {{w|special relativity}} accelerating a mass exactly to '''c''' ''is'' impossible. Einstein is well known not to have cared about his appearance (e.g. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EinsteinHair his uncombed hair], the tongue photo, etc.) so it is unlikely that he pondered how relativistic velocity would affect the appearance of his butt.

{{w|Lorentz contraction}} is a consequence of special relativity, whereby objects contract in the direction of travel. An object traveling exactly at '''c''' (rather than ''near'' light speed) would be squished completely flat. It would also have infinite mass, infinite energy, and experience no passage of time until slowed by an outside force.

The appearance of rotation while moving close to the speed of light is known as {{w|Terrell rotation}}. The title text then connects this rotation to the Shakira song "{{w|Hips Don't Lie}}".

==Transcript==
:[We see a head and shoulders view of Einstein. He looks pensive.]
:[Einstein's "line" is in a thought bubble.]
:Einstein: If I were traveling at the speed of light, my butt would look ''awesome''.
:Einstein was famed for his ''Gedankedank''.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1446: Landing

2014-11-12T06:01:15Z

173.245.56.200: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1446
| date = November 12, 2014
| title = ???
| image = http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/%3F%3F%3F.png
| titletext = ...
}}

==Explanation==
This comic seems to be changing over time like some past comics did. A Full explanation will likely have to wait till more panels are revealed.

It now says 3 hours to separation -- possibly about ESA landing probe on comet soon?

And now it's back to a blank frame.

12:50am: And now it says 'Has anyone ever tried this before?'.

'I don't think so.' A small black horizontal line, only a few pixels has appeared on the left.

Back to a wordless frame. The small black line has grown slightly. The black line has turned into the beginning of a shape, lengthening slightly with two small nubs on it.

==Frame by Frame Breakdown==
{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"
|-
!Image
!Day/Time
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-30-00_FjnXADopvO.png
|00:30:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-35-00_lVC98SMY1X.png
|00:35:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-40-00_wmf0bPtxDN.png
|00:40:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-45-00_MZprhbADHL.png
|00:45:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-50-00_Z63bWhoaxd.png
|00:50:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-55-00_2wCeCFN0R1.png
|00:55:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_01-00-00_FRnIhqA5IZ.png
|01:00:00
|}

==Transcript==

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]

1446: Landing

2014-11-12T05:58:42Z

173.245.56.200: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1446
| date = November 12, 2014
| title = ???
| image = http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/%3F%3F%3F.png
| titletext = ...
}}

==Explanation==
This comic seems to be changing over time like some past comics did. A Full explanation will likely have to wait till more panels are revealed.

It now says 3 hours to separation -- possibly about ESA landing probe on comet soon?

And now it's back to a blank frame.

12:50am: And now it says 'Has anyone ever tried this before?'.

'I don't think so.' A small black horizontal line, only a few pixels has appeared on the left.

Back to a wordless frame. The small black line has grown slightly.

==Frame by Frame Breakdown==
{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"
|-
!Image
!Day/Time
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-35-00_lVC98SMY1X.png
|00:35:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-40-00_wmf0bPtxDN.png
|00:40:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-45-00_MZprhbADHL.png
|00:45:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-50-00_Z63bWhoaxd.png
|00:50:00
|-
|http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_00-55-00_2wCeCFN0R1.png
|00:55:00
|-
|
|01:00:00
|}

==Transcript==

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]

Talk:1443: Language Nerd

2014-11-06T03:18:07Z

173.245.56.200: Clarification of use of "language nerd" (not really adjectived)

I got edit-conflicted (not a problem), but if someone wants to consider canibalising/correcting my own intended contribution, and then completely delete this comment (please!), here's what it was:
:The English language (and others) can be, and often is, treated quite fluidly with regard to certain word forms. For example "medalled"  has been coined as the act of "having gained a medal" in a sporting competition. (Not to be confused with "meddled".) "Verbed" (i.e. to have made a non-verb form into a verb form) is a more long-standing example which is used in this comic without any form of meta-reference  and has perhaps gained greater acceptance, already, even amongst those who might decry the other neologism.
:In the comic, "legit" has been newly created as an adverb, possibly from the adjective "legitimate" (confusingly, since "legitimately" already exists as a usable adverb), "adverb" has been 'verbed' into "adverbed" and it is also pointed out that the noun clause "language nerd" has been used in an adjectival context, i.e. "adjectived".
And I had also made the edit summary say "It's probably infinitely improvable, but I've stop-gapped an initial explanation and commentified some additionalifications you might have some usiness for.", but that's probably no use to anyone. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.112|141.101.99.112]] 08:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Indubitably. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this is also an homage to the [http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/28 Calvin and Hobbes] comic where Calvin likes to "verb" words.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.55|108.162.216.55]] 14:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
:"Verbing words weirds language" came to mind when I read today's comic, but I'd forgotten the source - thanks for that! [[User:DivePeak|DivePeak]] ([[User talk:DivePeak|talk]]) 01:58, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
:This is definitely a reference to the Calvin and Hobbes strip. "Verbing weirds language" is a famous phrase among linguists. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.200|173.245.56.200]] 03:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

What group who "might decry the other neologism[s]" accepts "verbed"? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 17:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm slightly confused about the "adjectived language nerd" claim - can someone clarify or chime in with their opinion? If "language nerd" is describing "go," (i.e. describing the way in which he/she "[went] on you," wouldn't you say that it was actually being adverbed (as with legit)? Or should at be interpreted as describing he/she themself, in which case I guess adjectived is correct? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.157|173.245.56.157]] 18:38, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

If you are confused about the "adjectived language nerd", I would like to point you to the discussion of this comic by linguist Geoffrey K Pullum (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15576) xkcd gets Pullum's stamp of approval and that is high praise indeed for linguistic matters. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.32|108.162.216.32]] 23:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

:Pullum is being rather lax here, probably because he likes the strip so much, and even he just says that it's "arguably accurate," which I wouldn't characterize as high praise. "Language nerd" here is functioning as a predicate noun, which Pullum calls a predicative complement and Wikipedia calls a predicative nominal or predicate nominal. So "language nerd" here isn't really an adjective, any more than "language" is an adjective, notwithstanding that it modifies "nerd." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.200|173.245.56.200]] 03:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1443: Language Nerd

2014-11-06T03:08:53Z

173.245.56.200: C&H strip should be referenced

Talk:3: Island (sketch)

2014-09-07T19:48:58Z

173.245.56.200: /* It's a hippo */ new section

It looks a bit like Saba, in the Caribbean. {{unsigned ip|82.161.213.206}}

== It's a hippo ==

I think the bumps on the top of the peak make a look like a hippopotamus-shaped island.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.200|173.245.56.200]] 19:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)