Editing 2754: Relative Terms

The terms "small" and "big" are used to refer to size; the terms "loud" and "quiet" are used to refer to (audial) volume. While these terms are relative, they are often used even when there is nothing obvious being compared against (e.g. "A windmill is a big thing" or "An ant is a small thing").

This comic humorously suggests that the item defined to be in the middle of all four terms ("neither small nor big; neither quiet nor loud") is a sewing machine, as a sewing machine seems (at least in comparison to the other items on the graph) to be neither particularly big nor particularly small; neither particularly quiet nor particularly loud. A standard sewing machine is roughly 60dB in volume and approximately 42” X 21”, although this is for industrial machines, and those in the home (table-top electric models) would be both smaller and quieter. More antique treadle-powered sewing machines might include the treadle-table, as an integral part of its size, but could be even quieter if kept well-maintained.

As the reference point, the sewing machine is placed in the center of the chart, while a selection of other example objects are located in the four quadrants around it, based on whether they are considered to be small or big, and loud or quiet. Many of the items might appear to have been placed in the wrong quadrant for their actual attributes; locations may reflect more how Randall generally thinks of these things, as opposed to others' subjective ideas of their real-life relationship to a sewing machine.

Other references from everyday life that could be placed in the center include the average adult human (the perspective from which people might measure other things), a bread-bin/box (a popular comparison for size {{w|breadbox#As a saying|in certain situations}}, but doesn't fit the bill in terms of loudness), or even something like "the size of a large/small/medium-sized dog" (which highly depends upon a shared reference of which breeds are commonly encountered, and dogs might be considered too loud to be in the middle of the volume range), all things that are often encountered. A sewing machine may once have been found in many homes, but some of the comic's comedic value may arise from the relative rarity in modern times.

| Book || Books are typically sized to be handheld, and thus smaller than a sewing machine, though some very large books do exist.[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/longest-book-in-the-world-impossible-to-read-180980814/#:~:text=At%2021%2C450%20Pages%2C%20the%20Longest,World%20Is%20Impossible%20to%20Read&text=Artist%20Ilan%20Manouach%20bound%20together,the%20commodification%20of%20comic%20books.] Similarly, books are associated with quiet activity, making no more sound than a quiet turning of a page in typical use, but could make a very loud bang if slammed shut on thrown forcefully on to a hard surface.

| Bun (rabbit or pastry) || "Bun" is an informal term for a rabbit and a loaf of bread; a comparison between the two was made in [[1871: Bun Alert]]. While {{w|Flemish_Giant_rabbit|some rabbits}} may reach the size of a small dog or a child, and specially baked items for promotional activity or record attempts may exceed the size of a sewing machine, both would typically be smaller. However, while bread, even when being eaten, is usually very quiet, rabbits can make a large amount of noise that is at odds with their common image.

| Hat || A hat, being a non-living item of clothing, is very quiet. They also come in a range of sizes, hence their position in the middle of the Big/Small axis.

| Newt || A newt is a semi-aquatic salamander. Being fairly small and living in water most of the time, they are very quiet.

| Popcorn || A snack that, as the name implies, is known for a popping sound when cooked, owing to moisture inside the kernels being heated and creating pressure. May also be annoyingly loud in a cinema setting. However, this is largely due to the otherwise low volume environment, and arguably a sewing machine might be equally or more annoying. Individual kernels, popped or unpopped, are generally smaller than a sewing machine.{{Citation needed}} Actual servings of popcorn in some cinemas, however, may be larger than a sewing machine.

| Songbird || {{w|Songbirds}}, despite being very small, are well known for their songs that can be heard over a large area.

| Whistle || This is of course a device known as a whistle, as these are small. The human act of whistling, or a whistle produced by, for example, a kettle, has no size (other than that of the whistler or whistling object). A whistle is used as an alert or signal, or could be another musical instrument (see Flute). The loudest human whistle ever recorded was 8372 Hz and roughly 110 DB, which is a C9 in the standard musical scale and is roughly as loud as a jackhammer[https://www.vnews.com/West-Lebanon-man-sets-a-world-record-for-whistling-24480844#:~:text=Guinness'%20website%20says%20Stanford%20reached,in%20the%20standard%20musical%20notation.]. Since a whistle should be able to beat this it must be seen as loud.

| Anaconda || Snakes typically aren’t that loud, especially constrictors like anacondas.

| Shark || When people think of sharks, they typically envisage something large and dangerous, yet eerily silent as they swim (up until entering a feeding frenzy), like a {{w|Great_white_shark|great white}}. However, sharks come in a large variety of sizes, often {{w|Dwarf_lanternshark|considerably smaller}} than a sewing machine.

| Statue || A stereotypical statue is a large piece of public art, intended to be viewed from afar, which would be larger than a sewing machine – even discounting the plinth or {{w|Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial)|other}} {{w|Nelson's Column|bases}}; however, there is no easily agreed lower size limit for when a statue becomes a statuette, figurine, bust or merely a carved/cast ornament, as any smaller examples of figurative art could be considered statues in a given situation. Famous and major examples do tend to be life-sized (or larger-than-life-sized) depictions of people, sometimes even depicted atop horses, making them significantly larger; even fractional-scale depictions could be easily of greater size than this comic's reference item.

Most statues are silent, but some may be plumbed in as fountains. Or occasionally equipped with other devices that make sound. There is also "musical statues" being a {{w|party game}}, that can be intermittently loud and quite large.

| The Moon || The Moon is very, very big{{fact}}, but it is also completely silent{{fact}} from the perspective of most humans, since sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space.

| Tree || A tree can be small and big, but generally aren't noisy outside the rustling of leaves and like. This might be a reference to the philosophical question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?". According to Randall, a tree falling like this would be fairly quiet.

| Windmill || Windmills need to have significant height in order to catch enough air movement to drive them. They are thought of as quiet, relative to other forms of power generation; in reality, though, the passage of the blades through the air can cause considerable noise, as can [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzwqBgWKalI the machinery that they drive].

| Airplane || An airplane produces a loud sound from its engines, while also being between 40 and 50 meters in length.

| Cannon || A cannon produces a loud sound when fired, and is on average 2.5 meters in length.

| Riding mower || Riding mowers are big in order to accommodate a person, and are known for being very loud, with a loudness of 85-90 decibels on average.

| Train || A form of public or cargo transport with carriages, variable size and noise production.

| Tuba || A musical brass instrument that creates a musical note by air blown through its mouthpiece.

| Waterfall || A waterfall makes noise as it crashes over rocks. However, the sound of a waterfall is a relaxing sound to many.

| Whale || Whales are the largest mammals currently living on earth, and are extremely loud in their underwater 'songs' and vocalisations, often reaching over 140 decibels. However, the frequency of these sounds is well outside the range of human hearing, which is why they're placed close to the center on the Quiet/Loud axis.