explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

User:Kynde

2024-10-22T05:30:50Z

108.162.250.151: Undo revision 353564 by AndroidTheLucario (talk)

oh my god

Talk:2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-04T09:24:44Z

108.162.250.151:

ummm. How does editing this stuff work. Is this HTML? Why can't we have a gooey? Also, I only sort of get this comic, but it's not that funny.
<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="up">Here is some scrolling text... going up!</marquee>
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.102|172.69.58.102]] 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

== Initial draft ==

Did my best with my first ever contribution - I know there's a chart feature but I cba to relearn html. Feel free to fix it and PLEASE finish my bad explanations. [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

⌊⌋ are floor brackets (and you can now copy-paste them from here into the explanation as needed) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.33|162.158.126.33]] 06:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
* As for the spaghetti, in Python, it'd be a list containing a tuple containing a list containing a set containing an empty tuple. Probably doesn't mean anything specific and pretty much useless), but it *is* legal code [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.164|162.158.126.164]] 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yay, I figured out how to use a table! [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, ex 60+ years and I'm sure I was taught in school to use "for first person speech" and 'for quoting others'. I hadn't even noticed printers doing the opposite. But there again I didn't go to Grammar School. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, too, and as I recall my school says sixty years ago, the symbols () are just called brackets and parenthesis is just the grammatical construct in which they can be used. But you can use dashes or even commas to indicate a parenthesis. This has been discussed on such blogs has Ben Yagoda's Not One-off Britishisms. https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2015/12/15/square-brackets/ --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.178|172.70.90.178]] 08:16, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The integral sign (and its reverse) in the context of string instruments are the so-called 'F-holes', and they're not just decorative elements but help in the instrument(s) resonate more freely. Other shapes exist as well. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_hole here] for an in-depth explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.151.27|172.69.151.27]] 09:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

「かっこ」[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.151|108.162.250.151]] 09:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

2922: Pub Trivia

2024-04-21T03:21:44Z

108.162.250.151: Brackets don't need capitals at the start. Clarified entry about Canberra - it takes up only part of the ACT by area; other cities are commonly mistaken for the capital, which might be part of the joke.

{{comic
| number = 2922
| date = April 19, 2024
| title = Pub Trivia
| image = pub_trivia_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x666px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Bonus question: Where is London located? (a) The British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) The UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A BOT ASKING BAD TRIVIA QUESTIONS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Many pubs have {{w|pub trivia|trivia nights}}, where patrons form teams and compete to answer questions about a range of topics. The typical goal for trivia games is that they be challenging, yet possible, and so the questions whose answers are too difficult or too easy generally make for a poor game. In addition, it's usually preferable that questions are clearly worded with a single, objective answer, so as to avoid disputes about which answers are correct.

Cueball has apparently been hired by one bar to infiltrate ''other'' bars' quiz nights and ask particularly bad questions. The implication is that this will make the games unpleasant, in the hopes that people will leave, and possibly go to the bar that hired Cueball.

Cueball uses a variety of strategies to write bad questions, including questions that are trivial (where the answer is painfully obvious), unanswerable (either because there is no answer, or because the answer is unknown), ambiguously worded or arguable.

Many of his questions could be altered slightly to make them more reasonable for such a game, but that would defeat Cueball's purpose.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Question !! Problem with the Question !! Explanation !! More Reasonable Alternative(s)
|-
|1. Which member of {{w|BTS}} has a birthday this year?||Multiple correct answers||All people have birthdays every year{{Citation needed}} (other than pedantic exceptions due to calendar issues or timezone alterations, or someone dying before their birthday, or being born on a leap day, none of which apply in this case). Therefore, all seven members of BTS have birthdays this year.||Which member of BTS has a birthday today/this week/this month? Which member of BTS turns [a specific age] this year?
|-
|2. How many sides does a {{w|platonic solid}} have?||Multiple answers, ambiguous language||There are five {{w|Platonic solids}}, with 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 faces (colloquially called sides) in {{w|Euclid|Euclidean}} {{w|Euclidean geometry|3-space}}. The solids have, respectively, 6, 12, 8, 30 and 30 edges (also occasionally called sides colloquially). A more devious quizmaster might actually include this as a trick question with the correct answer being 'zero', since strictly speaking solids do not have 'sides'.||How many Platonic solids are there? What is the highest number of faces on a Platonic solid? How many faces does a [specific platonic solid] have? How many faces (or edges, or vertices) do ''all'' the platonic solids have (i.e., added together)?
|-
|3. What is the smallest lake in the world?||Arguable||While the largest lakes are relatively straightforward to categorize, smaller bodies of water range in size down to individual puddles. There is no clear, definitional line at which a body goes from being a lake to a pond, for example. In addition, the size of small lakes will fluctuate due to variability in precipitation, and other weather effects, and some lakes only exist for brief periods (intermittent lakes). Hence, which small bodies of water are "lakes" and which is the smallest can't be clearly answered, without specifying a whole list of parameters and standards.||What lake has the largest surface area in the world? What is the world's deepest lake? What lake is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's smallest? (Benxi Lake in China).
|-
|4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks, {{w|Jaws (movie)|Jaws (1975)}} or {{w|Lincoln (movie)|Lincoln (2012)}}?||Trivial||''Jaws'' is a famous movie about a killer shark, and features at least five fatal shark attacks. Lincoln is a movie about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, containing zero shark attacks.{{Citation needed}} Anyone with even a passing familiarity with American popular culture should be able to get this one right, and someone with no knowledge could likely guess the answer from the titles alone. This might be mistaken for a silly trick question, as ''Lincoln'' is a much less famous movie.||How many times is a shark seen on screen in "Jaws"? Which film won more {{w|Academy Awards}}? How many fatal shark attacks occur in "Jaws"?
|-
|5. How many planets were there originally?||Ambiguous||The question doesn't specify a time frame or culture, which is necessary to understand both the word 'Planet' and the word 'originally'. It could be referring to the {{w|classical planets|original meaning of the word planet}}, which in antiquity referred to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (total of 7 planets). It could be referring to the planets originally known to the quiz master, which (assuming Cueball is between 18 and 96 years old) would be after the reclassification of Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Juno to asteroids, and after the discovery of Pluto, but prior to the reclassification of Pluto to dwarf planet (total of 9 planets). It could conceivably be referring to the first official definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, which would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (total of 8 planets). It could be referring to the process of planetary formation, in which case another layer of ambiguity is added, as it could be referring to the number of protoplanetary bodies in the {{w|protoplanetary disk}} (which is unknown), or the number of planets that accreted from the disk before some were likely ejected (which is also unknown), or how many planets existed when the sun or the universe was formed (which is 0). It also doesn't specify that it's referring to planets in our solar system alone (in the galaxy there are almost certainly trillions of planets). Additionally, it asks how many "were there", as opposed to how many planets "were known" (the number which we know of being far smaller than the true number of planets in the universe). ||How many planets were known to Ancient Greece? How many planets were known to science prior to the invention of the telescope? How many planets were recognized in our Solar System at the end of the 20th century?
|-
|6. What {{w|NFL}} player has scored the most points outside of a game?||Ambiguous, Unknowable||The term "scored the most points" generally only applies within the context of a game, making it very unclear what kind of "points" the question is referring to. Does it mean points in non-NFL games? Points in games other than football? Points outside the context of any game at all (such as 'making a point' in conversation)? Even if this were clarified, points scored in official games in professional sports leagues are meticulously recorded and published, points scored in any other context are not, so the question is likely impossible to answer. Arguably, Brian Jordan would be an answer, with 121 Minor League and 755 MLB runs scored (points).||Which NFL player scored the most points in a game/season/career?
|-
|7. The {{w|Wright brothers}} built the first airplane. Who built the last one?||Unknowable||Orville and Wilbur Wright are widely credited with designing and building the first airplane (in the sense of a they invented wingflaps, and discounting everybody flying before them without wingflaps). In modern times, design and construction of airplanes has become a huge, international industry, with many airplanes of widely varying sizings being built each year. Since airplanes are built continuously, which one was made most recently depends on when the question is asked (and would be very difficult for the average person to know -- and not trivial for even a member of the aerospace industry to know). If it's asking about the last airplane ''ever'', that's impossible to know, since that plane hasn't been built yet (and hopefully won't for a very long time).||Who built the first airplane '''after''' the Wright brothers? When was the final Wright Model B aircraft built?
|-
|8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?||Unknown, Possibly unknowable||This is a famous, centuries-old {{w|open question}} in math known as {{w|Goldbach's conjecture}}. Mathematicians widely believe that it is true, and it has held true for every number checked up to 4 ⋅ 10<sup>18</sup>, but since it's impossible to check every number, we can't assume it's universally true. No mathematical proof of its veracity exists at this point. Since it is {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems|known}} that something can be true but impossible to prove (and, being true, impossible to disprove), this may be the situation forever.||According to which mathematical conjecture is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
|-
|9. Not counting {{w|Canberra}}, what city is the capital of {{w|Australia}}?||No answer exists||Australia has only one capital (unlike some countries, which divide the legislative and administrative capitals, for example), and that capital is Canberra. Hence, by definition, there is no national capital "not counting Canberra". Though each constituent state also has its state capital (inclusive of Canberra, which is, by population, almost the entirety of its {{w|Australian Capital Territory|own state territory}}), this would still leave us with an ambiguous choice. Before 1927, the answer could be Melbourne, as that was where the Parliament sat at that time. This may be a joke about how other cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney, are often mistaken for the capital of Australia due to Canberra's comparatively small population (roughly 500,000 in the greater metropolitan area, compared to Melbourne and Sydney's roughly 5,000,000 each). ||What city is the capital of Australia? What is currently the largest city in Australia? What is the smallest state capital in Australia? Not counting Canberra, what city was the most recently founded state capital of Australia? What city was the capital city before Canberra?
|-
|10. Who played the drums?||Trivial, yet unknowable without context||As worded, the question could be answered with anyone who's ever played the drums, in any context, whether professional or not, in all of history. This would include a huge number of people, most of whom would not be well-known. Most people would be able to offer a technically correct answer, and almost none of them would be interesting. Or maybe the host is wondering who it was that played drums that night, as part of the bar's live music.||Who played the drums for some specific band/album/track/concert/time/place?
|-
|(Title text) Where is {{w|London}} located? (a) the {{w|British Isles}} (b) {{w|Great Britain and Northern Ireland}} (c) the {{w|United Kingdom|UK}} (d) {{w|Europe}} (or 'the {{w|European Union|EU}}') (e) {{w|Greater London}}||Multiple answers||All choices are technically correct as they are various geographical areas that include the city of London, England. Also note that the City of London is different from the city ''named'' London, as the latter includes a large region around the former, hence (e) as an answer. Answer (d) is both correct and incorrect, as it conflates a geographic region, Europe, and a political body, the European Union. The United Kingdom (and therefore London) {{w|Brexit|left the EU}} in 2020, but is still geographically included in Europe. In addition, 'the UK' is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so answers (b) and (c) refer to the same thing. This also does not get into cities named London outside of the UK, so for example "Ontario" or "Canada" could also be possible answers if the test designer were truly evil, thus making none of the answers correct. ||What is the capital of the United Kingdom? (answer: London)<br>Where is London, England '''not''' located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (e) the EU (answer: (e))
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[The top half of Cueball is shown. He is holding a wireless microphone in his right hand and a pencil and notebook in his left, reading from the notebook and speaking into the microphone]:
:Cueball:

:Welcome to pub trivia! Round one is 10 questions:

# Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?
# How many sides does a platonic solid have?
# What is the smallest lake in the world?
# Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks - ''Jaws'' (1975) or ''Lincoln'' (2012)?
# How many planets were there originally?
# What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?
# The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?
# Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
# Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?
# Who played the drums?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:A local pub trivia place hired me to run bad quizzes at competing bars.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category: American football]]
[[Category: Astronomy]]
[[Category: Geography]]
[[Category: Math]]
[[Category: Music]]

2896: Crossword Constructors

2024-02-20T20:05:53Z

108.162.250.151: Add a note that this is about US-style quick crosswords; as a non-American I was very mystified as to why you’d need words like this to make a crossword.

{{comic
| number = 2896
| date = February 19, 2024
| title = Crossword Constructors
| image = crossword_constructors_2x.png
| imagesize = 285x388px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Also, we would really appreciate it if you could prominently refer to it as an 'eHit'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a THREE-LETTER WORD THAT STARTS WITH B - Add meanings of words given, if any. Also check whether any of these words are albums or songs already. Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is inspired by a common situation when people try to make US-style quick crossword puzzles (where the grid is almost completely filled with words). Here, [[Cueball]], [[Hairbun]], and [[White Hat]] are {{w|crossword puzzle}} constructors, but some of the words they would like to use would result in awkward sequences of letters crossing them which are not English words or familiar names, such as "aete", "eni", etc. However, they have an idea to write a letter to persuade prominent singers ({{w|Taylor Swift}}, {{w|Ed Sheeran}}, {{w|Nicki Minaj}}, {{w|Ariana Grande}} and {{w|The Weeknd}}) to choose these awkward sequences of letters as titles of their future albums, thereby letting Cueball, Hairbun, and White Hat write clues about those albums and use those letter sequences as answers.

The particular sequences of letters that are selected are notable for their exclusive usage of the most common English letters. They also all begin and end with a vowel. These are two features that are common in "crosswordese", i.e. words which appear significantly more often in crosswords than in reality. Examples of crosswordese that are actually used include the words "{{w|OREO}}", "{{w|Épée|EPEE}}", and "{{w|Yoko Ono|ONO}}". However, none of these words are actual common English words {{cn}} and are unlikely to be album names (especially when taking {{w|Ed Sheeran discography|Ed’s albums}} into consideration).

The title text lists another sequence of awkward letters, "ehit". Thus, Cueball, Hairbun, and White Hat ask these singers to refer their hits (popular songs) as "eHit"s, adding the "e" for electronic such as in e-mail and e-dating. This is also a reference to common crossword entries like "E-TAIL" or "E-MAG" which are often criticized for using the prefix "E" to create words that no one really uses.

===Possible unintended meanings of words===
*aete: {{w|Apple_event#Object_Model|AppleEvent Terminology Extension}}
*eni: {{w|Eni|Eni S.p.A.}}, Italian multinational energy company; the name of an {{W|Eniola_Aluko|England footballer}}
*oreta: ''{{w|Oreta}}'', moth genus in family {{w|Drepanidae}}
*aroe: {{w|Aroe}} may refer to: The Aru Islands Regency, islands in eastern Indonesia; Aroe, an alternative name for Aroi, Patras, in western Greece
*oine: {{w|Kusumoto Ine}}, also known as O-Ine, Japanese physician
*aen: {{w|AEN}} may refer to: Acute esophageal necrosis, a rare esophageal disorder; and more
*enta: ''[[wikt:enta|enta]]'' (French verb) third-person singular past historic of ''[[wikt:enter#French|enter]]'' (to graft, to implant)
*aerae: ''[[wikt:aerae|aerae]]'' (Latin noun) genitive/dative singular and nominative plural of ''[[wikt:aera#Latin|aera]]'' (era)

''{{w|Enta da Stage}}'' is the debut album by American East Coast hip hop group Black Moon.<br/>
''öine'' means nocturnal/nightly in Estonian, and features in the titles of a number of albums by artists from that country.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at a table and typing on his laptop, with small movement lines above his hands indicating typing. White Hat and Hairbun are standing behind him and looking at what he writes. The text he writes can be seen above them. The list of words at the end are written in two columns with four words in each. Here below, the second column of words is written below the first:]
:Dear Ms. Swift, Mr. Sheeran, Ms. Minaj, Ms. Grande, and Mr. Weeknd,
:We are a group of crossword puzzle constructors, and we would like to suggest some titles for your future albums:
:*Aete
:*Eni
:*Oreta
:*Aroe
:*Oine
:*Aen
:*Enta
:*Aerae

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]