Difference between revisions of "Talk:1662: Jack and Jill"

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Everything ok, Randall Hun?
 
Everything ok, Randall Hun?
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See the header on the site: "The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. / Please stand by!"
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[[Special:Contributions/162.158.72.11|162.158.72.11]] 21:18, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Revision as of 21:18, 1 April 2016

Often water in spring (up hill) has better quality than in stream or river (down in the valley) --JakubNarebski (talk) 14:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The ground water table tends to be really close to ground on legs of a hill, so it's an ideal place to dig a well, in some places just a mand-made pond about a feet deep is all that is needed, in which case it's called a spring. 141.101.80.76 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

jack and Jill / went up the hill / to have a little fun / but silly Jill / forgot the pill / and now they have a son. 141.101.104.151 14:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that there was a well at the top of the hill, though I hadn't realised I'd made that assumption until now. And, come to think of it, the top of a hill's a pretty bad place to put a well. --jwanders 108.162.237.160 14:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

High water sources are ideal. Not only do they tend to be cleaner, but it also makes for easier transportation. Note that hills are often at the base of mountains. 108.162.246.119 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been three weeks since Randall made a really complicated joke with 1653: United States Map (and a week before that also with 1649: Pipelines). Someone mentioned a possible school book project based on Thing Explainer as the reason for this. Personally I hope it is because he is saving up time to spend on the joke (on us all :-) this Friday with the next April fools' comic like 1350: Lorenz or 1506: xkcloud. Can't wait. --Kynde (talk) 15:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I found the title text explanations to miss the obvious implication that earthquakes shake the ground causing people (and buildings) to literally fall down. I preface my comment with my ignorance, I have never experienced an earthquake first hand and I am not knowledgeable as to which magnitude is required to bring things to their knees. Perhaps to this date fracking has not been associated with earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to produce this result. Still, I think this was the intended meaning on its face and I added it to the explanation without removing the others as they did make some sense.--R0hrshach (talk) 15:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Well someone has deleted both yours and my speculations. I still think that the idea that people who begin with fracking at first can be popular for the money they bring to the local economy, but then when all the problems related to this endeavor begin to be felt (and micro earthquakes are probably the least given how many dangerous chemicals are released into nature during the process) then maybe those who at first celebrated the project will bring you down, i.e. make you fall. (Maybe only financially be suing Jack) The deleted explanations can be seen here. If anyone else agrees that this may be the reason for the fall in the title text maybe it should be re-added? But else it will just be left as my thoughts here in the discussion page. --Kynde (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The third line of the title text has an ambiguous trochaic foot with the word "oil". Some people (myself included) pronounce this word as almost two syllables (oy-el), while others make it a single syllable. 173.245.54.43 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Why does that child say "me and Jack" instead of "Jack and I"? That seems such a glaring grammatical mistake that it must be intentional, right? 162.158.86.239 17:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Because she's a child. Children often use incorrect grammar of that kind. 141.101.98.82 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
I think many kids will say it like that in spite them being told by their parents (repeatedly) to not name them selves first. But by letting Jill speak like this, he just let them be ordinary children. How many small kids do you actually hear say Jack and I will go up the hill, instead of Me and Jack will go up the hill? I think it would be more strange had he done it the other way, so yet I think it was on purpose, but only for the purpose or realism, not to hide any meaning... --Kynde (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC) (When first posting this it resulted in a posting conflict with the above comment, so won't change even though saying basically the same as it was a reply to the one above before the other one was posted.)
This is actually an extremely common mistake, by native English speakers of all ages, such that it is frequently used in popular media (movies, TV, etc), often corrected by someone. And despite this correction frequently showing up, people still make this mistake, to the point where many people consider it "correct enough". I've seen this "me and him" grammatical mistake portrayed so often that I've even picked up a rule of thumb offered by some of these portrayals: Take the other person out, does it still make sense? "Me am going up the hill". This format is so common that it is less an error and more casual speaking, on par with words like "ain't", "gonna" and "gotta". In fact, saying the correct "Jack and I" can even sound odd, it's so rare. - NiceGuy1 173.245.52.64 02:32, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

The poem doesn't necessarily indicate that the water or well was located atop a hill, merely that they had to scale a hill to reach it. It could simply mean that the water source is beyond the hill in question. 108.162.242.129 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting observation, but somewhat lateral. 141.101.98.82 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Also, going up a hill to get to the other side would be "going over the the hill".173.245.54.71 22:55, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, unfortunately "up" is vague and "over" would be an indication of beyond.108.162.242.129 16:36, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

It seems like there have been a lot of environmental related comics, both recently with this and the tire swing and in general, often about global warming, but also about risk of Nuclear war/or pollution. Should there be a category, and if so, what should it be called, and should it only be about environment, also about nukes, or even only about global warming (or should there be more)? --Kynde (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Where does it say that the water is at the top of he hill? They go some distance up the hill, but not necessarily to the top. There maybe any number of reasons why they go there for water. Maybe there is a brook running down the hillside. Maybe there a well was dug there because that is where most people live. Maybe the water in the valley is poluted. Andso on and so forth. --162.158.135.51 06:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

There are Dew Ponds which are at the top of hills, more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_pond 141.101.98.59 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

What happened to Friday's comic

I know they don't happen at 00:00 GMT, but it's now 19:44 GMT/20:44 BST and no new comic.

Everything ok, Randall Hun?

See the header on the site: "The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. / Please stand by!" 162.158.72.11 21:18, 1 April 2016 (UTC)