1625: Substitutions 2
| Substitutions 2 |
 Title text: Within a few minutes, our roads will be full of uncontrollably-swerving cars and our skies full of Amazon delivery dogs. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Please add examples as per 1288 comic. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
In this table, Randall suggests substituting several common phrases in generic news with similar or related phrases that mean something different for comical effect. Some of the replacements are synonyms, some are antonyms, and some are plain different concepts that, while would make a grammatically correct sentence, the resulting idea would sound absurd or bizarre.
Some of the examples might, also, mock the fact that many news contradict the actual facts or obvious results of a situation. (e.g. "[influential person] vows to do good to the world" would be replaced with with a more usual fact "[influential person] probably won't do good to the world")
The title text is an example of how the closing sentence of a given article or report might sound.
See also 1288: Substitutions.
See also 1031: s/keyboard/leopard/ and 1418: Horse.
Examples:
- Original sentence (as per title text, using also 1288 for "cars"): Within a few years, our roads will be full of self-driving cars and our skies full of Amazon delivery drones.
- Modified sentence: Within a few minutes, our roads will be full of uncontrollably-swerving cats and our skies full of Amazon delivery dogs.
- Original sentence: North Korea’s Kim vows to raise living standards
- Modified sentence: North Korea’s Kim probably won't raise living standards
- Original sentence: Commissioner Russell successfully ran for an at-large seat on the commission
- Modified sentence: Commissioner Russell suddenly ran for a very large seat on the commission
- Original sentence: The Republican presidential front-runner faces a global firestorm
- Modified sentence: The Republican presidential blade runner faces a spherical firestorm
- Original sentence: Donald Trump remains the front-runner Republican candidate in an unknown number of polls since the debates.
- Modified sentence: Donald Trump remains the Blade Runner Republican Airbender in like hundreds of psychic readings since the dance-offs.
- Original sentence: There was no indication of first-degree familial relationships in the analyzed dataset
- Modified sentence: There were lots of signs of friggin' awful familial relationships in the analyzed dataset
Airbender refers to the show Avatar: The Last Airbender, where there are waterbenders, earthbenders, firebenders and airbenders.
- Original sentence: Fifth Republican debate: where each candidate excelled and faltered
- Modified sentence: Fifth Republican dance-off: where each airbender excelled and faltered
Transcript
More
Substitutions
That make reading the news more fun
| Debate | ➜ | Dance-off |
| Self driving | ➜ | Uncontrollably swerving |
| Poll | ➜ | Psychic reading |
| Candidate | ➜ | Airbender |
| Drone | ➜ | Dog |
| Vows to | ➜ | Probably won't |
| At large | ➜ | Very large |
| Successfully | ➜ | Suddenly |
| Expands | ➜ | Physically expands |
| First/Second/Third-degree | ➜ | Friggin' awful |
| An unknown number | ➜ | Like hundreds |
| Front runner | ➜ | Blade runner |
| Global | ➜ | Spherical |
| Years | ➜ | Minutes |
| Minutes | ➜ | Years |
| No indication | ➜ | Lots of signs |
| Urged restraint by | ➜ | Drunkenly egged on |
| Horsepower | ➜ | Tons of horsemeat |
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refresh comments!Discussion
See previous discussion for browser plugins, scripts, bookmarklets etc. at 1288:_Substitutions [sven]
Can someone update the plugin for Chrome that does the word swaps? :3 Also swap it for upgoerfive-nounsInternational Space Station (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
The Title Text should read "...uncontrollably-swerving cars", not "...uncontrollably-swerving cats". But I don't have the heart to change it.
- Neither do I... 173.245.54.55 16:14, 4 January 2016 (UTC)(Daniel)
- Actually, if you applied the 1288 substitutions it would be uncontrollably-swerving CATS.
Ok, I just checked the log, and it was added here, "(cur | prev) 15:11, 4 January 2016 141.101.104.7 (Talk) . . (+1,212) . . (undo)" by the person who added the transcript, obviously I don't know if this was deliberate, though I suspect it was. Either way I think it is very funny and we should leave it. 173.245.54.55 16:14, 4 January 2016 (UTC)(Daniel)
How many of them can be used? "Like hundreds of civilians received friggin awful burns after a not very sudden dog attack Tuesday. After spherical outrage, the blade runner of presidential airbenders probably won't drunkedly egg it on the future."162.158.114.222 16:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
huh...nothing for 'campaign' or 'voters'...also, the 'uncontrollably-swerving cats' is probably a victim of the first substitution filter that changes 'cars' to 'cats'162.158.56.227 17:06, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
"The suspect is currently very large" -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 22:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
after loading this into the browser plugin I noticed a loop caused "physically expands" to become "physically physically physically physically physically expands" and I began pondering whether the adding of extra physically-ies made the word intensify. Then I wondered why someone would need to intensify the acknowledgement of physicality. Then I looked at my hands, like REALLY looked at my hands. Beastachu (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
As a small note, "No indication ➜ Lots of signs" would actually create quite a few grammatically incorrect sentences. 108.162.241.133 01:19, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
This page looks interesting when you do the replacements on it http://i.imgur.com/dg0bzw9.png - Gradient (talk) 09:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC
The 'dog -> drone' relation could also be a referance to a Half-Life 2 robot called "Dog". This "drone" helps the protagonist, Dr. Freeman, with tasks that could otherwise not be completed by humans, much like todays drones. 197.234.243.234 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
The substitution is one-way, for example "years" becomes "minutes", but in the example, the substitution is backwards. 134.255.101.92 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
At large just means unconfined. It gets hyphenated when it gets made part of a noun. So you can have, for example, editor-at-large. It is not reserved solely for fugitives and politicians 162.158.39.23 13:05, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Spherical firestorm sounds awesome172.70.230.157 23:47, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Murder Dogs 172.69.7.150 13:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
