745: Dyslexics

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 09:02, 23 March 2015 by 141.101.80.65 (talk) (Explanation: the first inversion was misstyped, or was that a joke?)
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Dyslexics
And of course I had to redo this like three times because I kept writing 'UNTIE'; I kept doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong.
Title text: And of course I had to redo this like three times because I kept writing 'UNTIE'; I kept doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong.

Explanation

The joke shirt is supposed to be "Dyslexics of the world, Untie!", a nod to the The Far Side comic touching on the same topic (Dyslexics marching in parade, carrying a sign (inadvertently) reading "Dyslexics of the world UNTIE") because dyslexics mixed up the T and the I. In this case, the dyslexics were trying to make a parody of their propensity to transpose letters. The double transposition cancelled out, resulting in the original (but unintended) untransposed message.

The title text is an inversion of the inversion of the joke in the comic, in which Randall accidentally wrote the "incorrect" version of the shirt while trying to draw the comic. The last sentence ("I kept [...] wrong") means that, unwittingly, Randall kept failing at failing at failing.

Transcript

[A t-shirt is shown with the text "DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!" screen-printed on it.]
The dyslexic support group ran into difficulties when they tried to make a joke fundraiser t-shirt.


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Discussion

Can someone explain this sentence: "I kept doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong."? Other than the 3 nested quotes, I don't get the point. Djbrasier (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

He's expanding the "it" in "doing it wrong." The joke of the comic itself is that the dyslexics are having difficulty making a mistake--they're doing "doing it wrong" wrong. In the title-text, Randall reveals he was having difficulty doing that wrong--he was doing "doing "doing it wrong" wrong" wrong. --Hatkirby (talk) 07:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It's a nested statement. Perhaps made clearer with parenthesis. He's {doing [doing (doing it wrong) wrong] wrong}. In other words. He's incorrectly executing the incorrect execution of "doing it wrong" 199.27.128.112 03:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

A := "doing it wrong"
This is referring to the mispelling of 'unite' as 'untie' by the dyslexic designer of the T-shirt.

B := "doing A wrong" == "doing 'doing it wrong' wrong"
This refers to Randall's purposefully mispelling 'untie' as 'unite' to parody the The Far Side comic (which spelled 'unite' as 'untie').

C := "doing C wrong" == "doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong"
This refers to Randall getting confused and writing out 'untie' instead of 'unite'. He is messing up his parody of the The Far Side joke.

Steven Chartis 108.162.237.124 22:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you meant to say "doing B wrong" at the end instead of C. 108.162.210.232 18:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
So he was explaining 'doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong' wrong? That's wrong on so many levels!--Lupo (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

"an invresion" is likely a typo but it's on-topic so I'm totally leaving it there 188.114.97.133 00:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I actually saw "untie" on first glance... that sukcs... flewk (talk) 10:09, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Same here, it took me a few times to get it straight. Dontknow (talk) 05:09, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Once when Thelonius Monk wanted a retake during a recording session of one of his compositions he explained, "I played the wrong wrong notes."

Or, as Eric Morecambe would say... "He's playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order." Brenda (talk) 08:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)


Oh. I was thinking "Dylsexia" before I even looked at "UNITE" 162.158.75.22 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Sometimes, you just need to own it. Someone I used to go to church with used to have an eddress lisdexyc@(the domain.com) Cosumel (talk) 21:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Mispelling obversed above. (It's supposed to be misspelling, but who cares except for grammar and spelling nazis?) 172.71.22.132 (talk) 18:59, 16 January 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)