explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:648: Fall Foliage

2025-04-15T11:18:25Z

Arthur101: Minor changes to my comment.

It's not so clear to me that it's Megan that makes the title comment about "replacing you with older pictures". When I first read it, I thought it's more like something that Cueball would have said, since he's so eager to "mess with Photoshop"... [[Special:Contributions/77.254.185.80|77.254.185.80]] 13:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)szeryf

:Megan is the one who seems happy here, so I think that the existing discussion text is correct on this point. I think this comic is also a more general comment on real vs simulated experiences. For example, do you think it is more fulfilling to have a girlfriend, or to photoshop a girlfriend into existing pictures of you? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 06:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Added an explanation of fall. Autumn is only weirdly called that in the US, the rest of the world won't know that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.53|141.101.98.53]] 18:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
:Uhh, ask a Chinese or a German like me, we are also part of the rest of the world outside the US. BTW: in German it's "Herbst", which is close to harvest. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
::Clearly I meant the English speaking world. It's only used that way in American. Don't be pedantic. At a guess, if it wasn't for the autmun foliage in the comic, a significant proportion of British people would not have made the association between fall and autumn. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.53|141.101.98.53]] 21:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
:::Mentioning both words should be enough — keep it simple because everybody will understand. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
:::: Let's be honest here, given the huge amount of American media the English speaking world consumes there are probably very few people who don't know that "Fall" is Americanese for autumn. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 01:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

For those curious what the picture would actually look like with the hue shifted, [https://imgur.com/jLMVU8t here it is] - when the trees are green (a 90-degree hue shift), the sky has a hint of purple, about the right shade for sunrise or sunset.

"Instead of spending all that time in Photoshop, we could've just asked ChatGPT to generate images of 'beautiful fall foliage'." [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 11:16, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:648: Fall Foliage

2025-04-15T11:16:47Z

Arthur101: Added comment.

It's not so clear to me that it's Megan that makes the title comment about "replacing you with older pictures". When I first read it, I thought it's more like something that Cueball would have said, since he's so eager to "mess with Photoshop"... [[Special:Contributions/77.254.185.80|77.254.185.80]] 13:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)szeryf

:Megan is the one who seems happy here, so I think that the existing discussion text is correct on this point. I think this comic is also a more general comment on real vs simulated experiences. For example, do you think it is more fulfilling to have a girlfriend, or to photoshop a girlfriend into existing pictures of you? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 06:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Added an explanation of fall. Autumn is only weirdly called that in the US, the rest of the world won't know that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.53|141.101.98.53]] 18:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
:Uhh, ask a Chinese or a German like me, we are also part of the rest of the world outside the US. BTW: in German it's "Herbst", which is close to harvest. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
::Clearly I meant the English speaking world. It's only used that way in American. Don't be pedantic. At a guess, if it wasn't for the autmun foliage in the comic, a significant proportion of British people would not have made the association between fall and autumn. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.53|141.101.98.53]] 21:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
:::Mentioning both words should be enough — keep it simple because everybody will understand. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
:::: Let's be honest here, given the huge amount of American media the English speaking world consumes there are probably very few people who don't know that "Fall" is Americanese for autumn. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 01:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

For those curious what the picture would actually look like with the hue shifted, [https://imgur.com/jLMVU8t here it is] - when the trees are green (a 90-degree hue shift), the sky has a hint of purple, about the right shade for sunrise or sunset.

Instead of spending all that time in Photoshop, we could've just asked ChatGPT to generate images of "beautiful fall foliage". [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 11:16, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:36: Scientists

2024-08-23T11:11:32Z

Arthur101: wow

If Cueball's a scientist, the statement is perfectly valid. Even more so if his scientist friends are helping him, and they can't find his shoes either. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 07:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I found the fact that the last sentence was present in the explanation funnier than the comic itself. -- [[Special:Contributions/131.175.28.142|131.175.28.142]] 22:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Its worth pointing out the comic was drawn in 2006 -- 'pretty gay' was not nearly as politically incorrect then as it is now. Wow, this is an old comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.125|162.158.255.125]] 14:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Political incorrectness is a good thing. I'd hope he'd do this one again today. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 01:07, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
:Political incorrectness is a good thing? wow. While I also find overly political correctness in many cases over the top, unneccesary and annoying, this is a clear example where political correctness helps to battle discrimination. By using the term "gay" to describe one stereotype associated with homosexuality, this stereotype is further enforced, and people are treated according to it. I do not know a lot about you, but your username sounds like an adjective, so imagine, I started a trend describing people who are e.g. pedophile as "kazvorpal", and this trend catches on. Soon you would find yourself excluded from events, jobs, etc. because people would assume you are a pedophile. Wouldn't you prefer that to not happen? that is one example why political correctness is a good thing. Sorry for the trollfeeding. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
::No, you are suffering from the ravages of inductive reasoning. Political correctness includes a pretense that the speaker is battling discrimination, but it's just virtue signalling. They are, in fact, ''encouraging'' discrimination, and heaping advocacy of censorship and repression on top of it. Using "gay" as a mock pejorative does nothing to harm actual homosexuals, and in fact robs the term of its emotional power, as humor often does. Daniel Tosh incessantly making faux-bigoted comments uses humor to weaken racism, sexism, et cetera. And the end does not justify the means: Repressing the expression of others is evil, even when you're trying to use doing so to impress others about how virtuous you are. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 15:43, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
::: That opinion is what scientists call "pretty straight white man". --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.163|141.101.99.163]] 22:18, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
:::: Ad hominem {{unsigned|108.162.237.191}}
::::: Ad heteronym. Seriously though, stop being so ''straight'' --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.63|162.158.134.63]] 21:12, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

as someone who scientists are calling "pretty gay" (bisexual) and "retarded" (autistic), I find this comic humorous. -- [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 00:33, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
:- also gay and autistic here. I agree this comic is funny, but that doesn't make it at all okay to use gay as an insult, or to use the r-slur at all, and I hope that basic level of "political correctness" becomes more common and respected (user: human physics padawan) {{unsigned ip|172.70.46.136|09:17, 6 February 2024}}
::- I agree. [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 03:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting edit I just felt I had to make, in response to another. The sentence:
However, since their being scientists is irrelevant to the legitimacy of their opinions about Randall's shoe problems, presenting their teasing as an expert opinion is humorously misleading; a similar joke is at play in [[1206: Einstein]].
...a change of "their being" was changed to "there being", assuming a homophonic error.
 However, technically (at least idiomatically) all three "their/there/they're" ''could'' be correct.
*"their being scientists" - 'the state of being scientists that they possess' works well as a concept,
*"there being scientists" - 'that scientists exist in that situation' also does, somewhat
*"they're being scientists" - 'it is scientists that they be' works well ('that they are' in alternate grammatical dialect, but off the 'being' form in both cases, rather than the secondary contracted 'are')
Anyway, I changed it onwards to "them being", i.e. 'those people (...that we can describe as scientists)'. In leiu of ''totally'' rewording to remove this (rather interesting) issue of grammar. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.147|172.70.85.147]] 11:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
In what scientists are calling ‘pretty gay’ (asexual), me. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.140|172.68.58.140]] 14:01, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

hey you guys are a bunch of fucking retards, but mostly just the people who don't have their username present... it's okay, i recognize the IP being from sissy la la land specifically in the faggotland provence... why care about real world issues when you could cry over mean internet words. also retarded people are funny, what you gonna do about it, pussies? lolololol (i'm retarded btw) [[User:Lizzy|Lizzy]] ([[User talk:Lizzy|talk]]) 01:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
:I don't think your opinion is valid (or even serious), but... mostly... I think you shouldn't have top-posted. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.54|172.69.195.54]] 03:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
:trolly troll troll [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
:jeez louise, dude. [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 11:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Talk:36: Scientists

2024-04-20T03:51:08Z

Arthur101: what they say is true

If Cueball's a scientist, the statement is perfectly valid. Even more so if his scientist friends are helping him, and they can't find his shoes either. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 07:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I found the fact that the last sentence was present in the explanation funnier than the comic itself. -- [[Special:Contributions/131.175.28.142|131.175.28.142]] 22:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Its worth pointing out the comic was drawn in 2006 -- 'pretty gay' was not nearly as politically incorrect then as it is now. Wow, this is an old comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.125|162.158.255.125]] 14:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Political incorrectness is a good thing. I'd hope he'd do this one again today. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 01:07, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
:Political incorrectness is a good thing? wow. While I also find overly political correctness in many cases over the top, unneccesary and annoying, this is a clear example where political correctness helps to battle discrimination. By using the term "gay" to describe one stereotype associated with homosexuality, this stereotype is further enforced, and people are treated according to it. I do not know a lot about you, but your username sounds like an adjective, so imagine, I started a trend describing people who are e.g. pedophile as "kazvorpal", and this trend catches on. Soon you would find yourself excluded from events, jobs, etc. because people would assume you are a pedophile. Wouldn't you prefer that to not happen? that is one example why political correctness is a good thing. Sorry for the trollfeeding. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
::No, you are suffering from the ravages of inductive reasoning. Political correctness includes a pretense that the speaker is battling discrimination, but it's just virtue signalling. They are, in fact, ''encouraging'' discrimination, and heaping advocacy of censorship and repression on top of it. Using "gay" as a mock pejorative does nothing to harm actual homosexuals, and in fact robs the term of its emotional power, as humor often does. Daniel Tosh incessantly making faux-bigoted comments uses humor to weaken racism, sexism, et cetera. And the end does not justify the means: Repressing the expression of others is evil, even when you're trying to use doing so to impress others about how virtuous you are. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 15:43, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
::: That opinion is what scientists call "pretty straight white man". --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.163|141.101.99.163]] 22:18, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
:::: Ad hominem {{unsigned|108.162.237.191}}
::::: Ad heteronym. Seriously though, stop being so ''straight'' --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.63|162.158.134.63]] 21:12, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

as someone who scientists are calling "pretty gay" (bisexual) and "retarded" (autistic), I find this comic humorous. -- [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 00:33, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
:- also gay and autistic here. I agree this comic is funny, but that doesn't make it at all okay to use gay as an insult, or to use the r-slur at all, and I hope that basic level of "political correctness" becomes more common and respected (user: human physics padawan) {{unsigned ip|172.70.46.136|09:17, 6 February 2024}}
::- I agree. [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 03:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting edit I just felt I had to make, in response to another. The sentence:
However, since their being scientists is irrelevant to the legitimacy of their opinions about Randall's shoe problems, presenting their teasing as an expert opinion is humorously misleading; a similar joke is at play in [[1206: Einstein]].
...a change of "their being" was changed to "there being", assuming a homophonic error.
 However, technically (at least idiomatically) all three "their/there/they're" ''could'' be correct.
*"their being scientists" - 'the state of being scientists that they possess' works well as a concept,
*"there being scientists" - 'that scientists exist in that situation' also does, somewhat
*"they're being scientists" - 'it is scientists that they be' works well ('that they are' in alternate grammatical dialect, but off the 'being' form in both cases, rather than the secondary contracted 'are')
Anyway, I changed it onwards to "them being", i.e. 'those people (...that we can describe as scientists)'. In leiu of ''totally'' rewording to remove this (rather interesting) issue of grammar. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.147|172.70.85.147]] 11:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
In what scientists are calling ‘pretty gay’ (asexual), me. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.140|172.68.58.140]] 14:01, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:919: Tween Bromance

2024-03-03T15:48:04Z

Arthur101: so uncanny bestie

Language elitist. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I think this needs an incomplete flag: the explanation needs more contextual detail, about colloquial portmanteaus like 'frenemy' and the common disapproval of 'words' like 'irregardless'. --[[User:Mynotoar|Mynotoar]] ([[User talk:Mynotoar|talk]]) 08:59, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

GAH! He's not DICTATING, the title is another joke! Tween? Bromance? Come on fellas and ladies. They are the first two portmanteaus! Cueball is essentially spitting out a sentence with an endless stream of irritating, inane, infintilisms, in an incredibly insensitive, lol, effort to drive Megan to the brink of insanity! Couldn't resist that last one. Yiffed made me giggle, the rest, connected to it, made my abs hurt from laughing, especially after Megan's reaction. He deserves a medal. Oh goodness. No profile so please don't use my IP address to violate me via the Internetz, if that is possible to do with an IP address. I would not know. Grazie. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.84|173.245.55.84]] 09:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not anybody here, I was just passing by and enjoying the annotations on these xkcd comics, but it seems to me like no explanation of this comic would be complete without talking about word aversion, sometimes called "the moist panties phenomenon", if someone wants to be funny. Basically, he is listing words that make people (or Randall himself?) uncomfortable. This page --- http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004835.html -- talks about word aversion in relation to the more common "word rage" that some neologisms and words that began as errors provoke. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.192|108.162.237.192]] 08:52, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The back of the chair is missing in the first frame. Probably just a mistake but didn't see it mentioned. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.33}}

Just a question: tween really is PRE-adolescent?? I always thought it was the equivalent of ten -> teen for twenty, so someone out of their teens, but in their (presumably early) twenties. I definitely have seen it used as such on different occasions, but it might have been by non-native speakers, as I am not living in an english-speaking country. Also, in my opinion, the rest of the comic has more of a twenty-somethings-who-never-came-out-of-puberty ring to it than a child's. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.69|162.158.85.69]] 19:41, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
:2 minutes ago I thought the same. I definitely saw that usage as an anglicism in German somewhere. However a quick google search proved, that the definition given here (children aged ~9-12) seems to be the actual one. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:56, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
::I think there are two parallel usages in play. I'm not a native speaker, but "tweens" is used by Tolkien in the Lord of the rings for the twenties in hobbits, who are only considered adult in their early thirties. Any usage derived from this probably refers to the early twenties. The books (and later the films) are a staple of popular culture around the world, so that slipping into a current vocabulary would not surprise me. Wether it was redefined to mean another age group by someone not familiar with the story or reinvented via a different etymology is a mystery to me. Definitely confused me the first time I read it somewhere with the other meaning. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.139|162.158.154.139]] 10:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

By my understanding, a "tween" is someone aged (roughly) 10-12, i.e. somewhere "between" early childhood and teenager-hood. {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.118}}

Oh, so one should stop searching for "tween porn"? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.119|198.41.242.119]] 13:42, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems the link to the "portmanteau" changed. Perhaps an archive copy can be found? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.147.131|172.70.147.131]] 18:18, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Why is this in furries category!? [[User:Moderator|Moderator]] ([[User talk:Moderator|talk]]) 23:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind [[User:Moderator|Moderator]] ([[User talk:Moderator|talk]]) 23:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

updated for the new generation: "By my sigma grindset, my oomfie rizzed so hard her moist gyatt made her skibidi in Ohio!" [[User:Arthur101|Arthur101]] ([[User talk:Arthur101|talk]]) 15:48, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:36: Scientists

2023-10-11T00:33:55Z

Arthur101: blah blah blah just my opinion blah blah blah blah