Editing 630: Time Travel

{{comic
| number    = 630
| date      = August 31, 2009
| title     = Time Travel
| image     = time travel.png
| titletext = She also starts every letter with "Dear Future <your name>"
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] prefaces her statements with "I've traveled here from the year 1983 [likely the year of her birth] to say this." The statement is (assuming 1983 to be her birth year or, at least, a year she lived during) perfectly valid, albeit not very meaningful as it is neither unique to her nor relevant to the succeeding question. As such, the preface breaks the {{w|Cooperative principle}} through the reasonable inferance that the preface should be relevant, accurate and complete. While it is accurate (i.e. "technically true") and likely complete (Megan likely only having one birth date), it fails to meet the requirement for relevance and, as such, is misleading. Under the Co-operative Principle this could mean one of two things, dependant upon Megan's motivations and self-awareness, as she could be breaking the axium intentionally (giving the statement a grander preface than she fully knows it to deserve) or alternatively breaking it unintentionally by truly believing that she is unique or special (or in some other way making it relevant) that she travels forward through time at one minute per minute. The latter is certainly possible within XKCD as we see in [[1617: Time Capsule]]

[[Cueball]] notes this but still wishes that she would stop saying that as it is superfluous and captures more attention than her statement is actually worth. It would also get annoying to hear that same line repeated numerous times.

The title text continues this idea of Megan inserting another superfluous - although true - forwards to her letters. It's technically true because the letter will arrive at the recipient some time in the future, but this is not the way most salutations that begin "Dear Future <name>" are meant. Many schoolchildren are assigned to write letters to their future selves as an exercise in reflection and thinking about the future, but addressing every letter this way would likely become annoying.

==Transcript==
[Megan has entered the scene from the left, and has her arms raised.  Cueball is eating something (possibly a bagel?) and looking over his shoulder at Megan.]
:Megan: I've traveled here from the year 1983 to say this:
:Megan: ''Are there any bagels left?''
:Caption: While it's technically true, I wish she'd stop prefacing every sentence with that.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Time travel]]