explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2982: Water Filtration

2024-09-07T02:53:19Z

162.158.42.81: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2982
| date = September 6, 2024
| title = Water Filtration
| image = water_filtration_2x.png
| imagesize = 593x467px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = You'd think the most expensive part would be the quark-gluon plasma chamber, but it's actually usually the tube to the top of the atmosphere to carry the cosmic rays down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Reverse Electrolysis Rube Goldberg Filtering Machine- Seasoned with Love (Or at least more well water) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

{{comic discussion}}

2973: Ferris Wheels

2024-08-19T23:57:09Z

162.158.42.81: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2973
| date = August 16, 2024
| title = Ferris Wheels
| image = ferris_wheels_2x.png
| imagesize = 624x280px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They left the belt drive in place but switched which wheel was powered, so people could choose between a regular ride, a long ride, and a REALLY long ride.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BELT POWERED BY A DIFFERENT WIKI PAGE IN ORDER TO KEEP THIS ONE GOING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic depicts an attempted connection of three {{w|Ferris wheel}}s using a {{w|Belt (mechanical)|mechanical belt drive}}, a system typically used to transfer motion between rotating shafts. By connecting the wheels at different circumferences, the relative motion is geared up or down. If the belt passes around the circumference of one wheel and is connected around the hub of another, the latter will rotate significantly faster. In this case, the second wheel's circumference is in turn connected to a third wheel's hub, resulting in even greater rotational velocity. However, this setup is mechanically unsound and possibly dangerous, as Ferris wheels are not intended to be connected in this way.{{cn}} As shown, the first wheel on the left is running at a normal speed, while the other two are rotating increasingly fast, leading to a potentially hazardous situation where passengers are flung around to various (possibly {{w|G-force#Human tolerance|quite hazardous}}) extents. Randall has previously explored the limits of the human body's tolerance for acceleration in ''What If # 116 "No Rules NASCAR"'' [https://what-if.xkcd.com/116/].

Ferris wheels can vary widely in size and speed of rotation, but for illustration, let us assume a diameter of about 200 feet (60 m) and a pretty sedate speed of around 10 minutes per full rotation. The apparent ratio between the connected wheels in the comic is approximately 12.5:1, meaning the motion is significantly sped up as it’s transferred. The second Ferris wheel, driven by the first, could spin at around 1.3 rpm, with passengers moving at 9 mph (14 km/h), giving a more exciting ride, but not inherently dangerous. However, when this motion is further transferred to the third Ferris wheel, it could spin at 16 rpm, with passengers traveling at over 110 mph (180 km/h), subjecting them to 8 Gs of force—conditions that would be hazardous. However, since the motor for the first wheel would have been selected merely to drive one wheel, it's unlikely it would be able to power the other two wheels moving at increased speeds.

In the caption [[Randall]] says that he was fired for this ill-advised modification, highlighting the impracticality and dangers of the idea. A cruise line also fired the cartoonist due to an unsound engineering proposal earlier in [[2935: Ocean Loop]].

The title text imagines the consequences of leaving the belt drive system in place but switching which wheel is powered. If the most extreme wheel (the third one on the right) is powered, the gearing would be reversed, making for a possibly pleasant and normal ride on the right-hand wheel, but rendering the experiences of the riders on the other two wheels far too slow for an enjoyable carnival ride. One revolution of the center wheel might take two hours and five minutes, while the left wheel would take around a little more than a day per revolution.    This exaggerates the impracticality and unintended effects of using a belt drive system to link up Ferris wheels, illustrating how such an idea would lead to absurdly varied ride experiences.

==Transcript==
:[Three Ferris wheels are shown side by side, with some people stood on the ground for scale. Each of the first two wheels has a belt connecting its circumference to the axle of the wheel to its right. "Agitrons" indicate that the middle wheel is turning notably faster than the left wheel, with the gondolas seen to be rocking significantly at all points round the wheel. The spokes of the right wheel are completely replaced by "motion lines", indicating that the the right wheel is turning the fastest of all. All its gondolas are hanging outwards against centripetal force, interspersed with their own motion lines.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The county fair fired me for adding a belt drive to the Ferris wheels.

==Trivia==
The first (slowest) wheel can be seen to notably lack a 'spoke' at approximately the five o'clock position, supporting the point where its respective passenger seating is hung. Clearly, however, the wheel design is strong enough to withstand much greater forces in the other two versions of the wheel (which appears to be complete in the case of the second, though the thin spokes are only seen as blurs in the third wheel) suggesting that there may not be significant danger from this omission. It does not bode well, however, for general {{w|Occupational Safety and Health Administration|OSHA compliance}} in how they erect/maintain the rides, even before the belt-drive idea added its own issues.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

2962: President Venn Diagram

2024-08-07T03:54:21Z

162.158.42.81: /* Explanation */ clarify

{{comic
| number = 2962
| date = July 22, 2024
| title = President Venn Diagram
| image = president_venn_diagram_2x.png
| imagesize = 445x398px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hard to imagine political rhetoric more microtargeted at me than 'I love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. It's just something about those three circles.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{notice|This comic contains just one opinion as interpreted by [[Randall|the comic's author]].
Please take care to not add anything to this explanation that might be your own personal political opinion. |image=warning!!.png|**NB. This warning could remain as long as Harris is a candidate in the election. Once this process concludes, we might need a different warning.}}

On the Monday that this comic was published, US Vice President {{w|Kamala Harris}} became the new presumptive {{w|Democratic_Party_(United_States)|Democratic Party}} nominee for the 2024 presidential election, having received verbal endorsements from a majority of Democratic state delegations; the day before, President {{w|Joe Biden}} had {{w|Withdrawal_of_Joe_Biden_from_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election|suspended his re-election bid}} and endorsed Harris. These major events resulted in Harris replacing Biden as one of the top two candidates for {{w|President of the United States|President}} in the 2024 election.

This comic features a three-way {{w|Venn diagram}} (which [[2721: Euler Diagrams|is also an Euler diagram]]). The three circles represent eligibility for US presidency, ability to do a good job as the US president, and love for Venn diagrams:

# '''Good President:''' [[Randall]] believes Harris would be a good president and implies as much, while making the reasonable assumption that he would not be. On the day this comic was published, a top Internet conversation topic was people's opinions of Harris, given the surprise nature of her candidacy, so Randall is adding in his opinion.
# '''Eligibility:''' According to Article II of the {{w|US Constitution}}, someone is {{w|President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility|eligible for the presidency}} if they are a natural-born citizen of the United States, are at least 35 years old, and are a resident in the United States for at least 14 years. Both Randall Munroe and Kamala Harris meet these qualifications. Additionally, the 14th amendment forbids those who have engaged in insurrection against the United States from holding public office without a two-thirds vote of the Congress to allow them to. Harris' opponent is widely considered to have engaged in an act of insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and it will likely fall to the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the presidency counts as a public office.
# '''Vocal Venn diagram affection:''' Harris' affection for Venn diagrams is something of a meme, and has been used by her in her campaign [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-campaign-memes-gen-z-b2583802.html]. Randall is also known for his love of Venn diagrams, which feature heavily in xkcd. Randall especially loves Venn diagrams ABOUT Venn diagrams, like this one. While Harris frequently uses Venn diagrams with three intersecting circles as props, she also has [https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5125622/user-clip-circle-venn-diagram discussed them in the abstract, without reference to any physical diagram, even when discussing more than three intersecting categories.]

Part of the humor arises from the contrast of putting on a level playing field three characteristics that range widely from the momentous to the quirky, as well as the implication that Randall and Harris are quite similar in all but one area: their fitness to serve as US President, per Randall's opinion.

The diagram does not indicate anyone who Randall would include in the six other areas (categories) of the Venn diagram besides the two in which he listed himself and Harris.

The title text [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWR2uTfrh-k quotes Kamala Harris on her affection for Venn diagrams], and implies that the best way to target Randall with political ads is to mention how amazing Venn diagrams are.

Randall seems to express support for a Democratic Presidential candidate every 8 years, including in a 2016 comic [[I'm With Her]] endorsing {{w|Hillary Clinton}} and in [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/28/obama/ a 2008 blog post] endorsing {{w|Barack Obama}}. In 2032 he will endorse [attention time-travelers/future editors, please edit this part to fill in whoever is running for president, and whether [[1688|the spiders are able to vote]].], followed by [same here] in 2040, Gabriele Cirulli in 2048, and X Æ A-12 Musk in the 2056 United States of America and Mars (USAM) election.

==Transcript==
:[A Venn diagram with three circles.]
:[Upper left circle:] Eligible to be President
:[Upper right circle:] Would be a good President
:[Lower circle:] Unusually vocal about love of Venn diagrams
:[Intersection of all three circles:] Kamala Harris
:[Intersection of the upper left and lower circles:] Me

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Venn diagrams]]
[[Category: Politics]]
[[Category: Elections]]
[[Category: Comics featuring politicians]]

2959: Beam of Light

2024-07-24T07:57:31Z

162.158.42.81: /* Explanation */ nrOOOOOMMMmmm

{{comic
| number = 2959
| date = July 15, 2024
| title = Beam of Light
| image = beam_of_light_2x.png
| imagesize = 235x419px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Einstein's theories solved a longstanding mystery about Mercury: Why it gets so hot. "It's because," he pointed out, "the sun is right there."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT FLYING ALONGSIDE A BEAM OF LIGHT NYYOOOOOOOOOOM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Albert Einstein]] is famous for his theory of {{w|special relativity}} (which deals with the interactions between high speeds and the perceptions of time), and he developed this theory, in part, by imagining himself flying alongside a beam of light. {{w|thought_experiment|Thought experiments}} such as this can reveal what appear to be fundamental principles of the universe that can revolutionize scientific understanding.

In this comic, Albert Einstein is depicted having an early version of this thought experiment. At this stage of theory development, it is less about breaking down the complex nature of relativity and more about how fun it would be to go really fast. So his thought experiment is currently just, so to speak, a flight of fantasy. (Although even Einstein's "NYYOOOM" sound of a car whizzing by is the sound of the {{w|Doppler effect}}, which alludes strongly to the {{w|relativistic doppler effect}} and [[2853: Redshift|redshift]].) Since this is early in his life, he is most likely sitting in the {{w|Albert_Einstein#1902–1909:_Assistant_at_the_Swiss_Patent_Office|Swiss patent office}} he is so famous for working at, when he got his ground breaking ideas.

In a similar vein, the title text refers to one of the long-standing issues about Mercury: {{w|Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury|its orbit around the Sun}} doesn't ''quite'' match what {{w|Newtonian physics}} would predict. We now know that this is accounted for by {{w|general relativity}}, another of Einstein's notable theories (which relates how gravity, or the space-time curvature that we understand as gravity, influences time and space, including planetary orbits) that was further developed out from the framework of special relativity. Again, we find ourselves overhearing his thoughts before he reaches any insights that will start to explain this. Instead he is stuck at just 'imagining' that Mercury is hot due to its proximity to the Sun, which isn't a particularly novel or useful conclusion, or close to what we would now recognize as Einstein's much-lauded theory.

At around the time of the comic's scenario, being only the first stages of Einstein's thoughts about Relativity, the issue of the Sun's heat was still considered a mystery. The {{w|Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism}} was proposed as the cause of the Sun's heat but was later superseded by the more modern understanding of nuclear fusion. The {{w|Yarkovsky effect}} had also been previously described as how thermal effects may influence orbital dynamics; this is still useful to know about in the case of asteroids but is not considered a significant factor for Mercury. Neither of these things were ever the focus of Einstein's own studies, though in 1915 he showed that General Relativity could explain Mercury's orbital anomalies, and independent observations during a 1919 solar eclipse helped confirm the principles and make Einstein famous.

An older version of Einstein was previously drawn in [[1206: Einstein]] and [[1233: Relativity]].

==Transcript==
:[Albert Einstein (a relatively young version, drawn with dark curly hair and a dark moustache) sitting on a chair, with a thought bubble above his head. There are papers, books and a cup on the desk in front of him.]
:Einstein (thinking): ''Nyoooooooooom!''
:Einstein (thinking): I'm so fast!
:Einstein (thinking): ''Nyyooooooooom!''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The first few times Einstein imagined flying alongside a beam of light, he didn't have any particular insights.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Albert Einstein]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2959: Beam of Light

2024-07-24T07:56:46Z

162.158.42.81: /* Explanation */ nroooommmmm

{{comic
| number = 2959
| date = July 15, 2024
| title = Beam of Light
| image = beam_of_light_2x.png
| imagesize = 235x419px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Einstein's theories solved a longstanding mystery about Mercury: Why it gets so hot. "It's because," he pointed out, "the sun is right there."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT FLYING ALONGSIDE A BEAM OF LIGHT NYYOOOOOOOOOOM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Albert Einstein]] is famous for his theory of {{w|special relativity}} (which deals with the interactions between high speeds and the perceptions of time), and he developed this theory, in part, by imagining himself flying alongside a beam of light. {{w|thought_experiment|Thought experiments}} such as this can reveal what appear to be fundamental principles of the universe that can revolutionize scientific understanding.

In this comic, Albert Einstein is depicted having an early version of this thought experiment. At this stage of theory development, it is less about breaking down the complex nature of relativity and more about how fun it would be to go really fast. So his thought experiment is currently just, so to speak, a flight of fantasy. (Although even Einstein's "NYYOOOM" sound of a car whizzing by is the sound of the {{w|Doppler effect}}, which alludes strongly to the {{w|relativistic doppler effect}} and [[redshift]].) Since this is early in his life, he is most likely sitting in the {{w|Albert_Einstein#1902–1909:_Assistant_at_the_Swiss_Patent_Office|Swiss patent office}} he is so famous for working at, when he got his ground breaking ideas.

In a similar vein, the title text refers to one of the long-standing issues about Mercury: {{w|Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury|its orbit around the Sun}} doesn't ''quite'' match what {{w|Newtonian physics}} would predict. We now know that this is accounted for by {{w|general relativity}}, another of Einstein's notable theories (which relates how gravity, or the space-time curvature that we understand as gravity, influences time and space, including planetary orbits) that was further developed out from the framework of special relativity. Again, we find ourselves overhearing his thoughts before he reaches any insights that will start to explain this. Instead he is stuck at just 'imagining' that Mercury is hot due to its proximity to the Sun, which isn't a particularly novel or useful conclusion, or close to what we would now recognize as Einstein's much-lauded theory.

At around the time of the comic's scenario, being only the first stages of Einstein's thoughts about Relativity, the issue of the Sun's heat was still considered a mystery. The {{w|Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism}} was proposed as the cause of the Sun's heat but was later superseded by the more modern understanding of nuclear fusion. The {{w|Yarkovsky effect}} had also been previously described as how thermal effects may influence orbital dynamics; this is still useful to know about in the case of asteroids but is not considered a significant factor for Mercury. Neither of these things were ever the focus of Einstein's own studies, though in 1915 he showed that General Relativity could explain Mercury's orbital anomalies, and independent observations during a 1919 solar eclipse helped confirm the principles and make Einstein famous.

An older version of Einstein was previously drawn in [[1206: Einstein]] and [[1233: Relativity]].

==Transcript==
:[Albert Einstein (a relatively young version, drawn with dark curly hair and a dark moustache) sitting on a chair, with a thought bubble above his head. There are papers, books and a cup on the desk in front of him.]
:Einstein (thinking): ''Nyoooooooooom!''
:Einstein (thinking): I'm so fast!
:Einstein (thinking): ''Nyyooooooooom!''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The first few times Einstein imagined flying alongside a beam of light, he didn't have any particular insights.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Albert Einstein]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2942: Fluid Speech

2024-06-07T05:16:35Z

162.158.42.81: unsatisfied

I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be the case in all languages. For example, when native Polish speakers talk rapidly (even when speaking English), they enunciate every sound accurately in quick succession while flattening out the tone and rhythm of their speech. I wonder if this is because Polish is an inflected language where the grammar of the sentence is determined by endings of words rather than word order. Does anyone know if there have been any studies on this? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 23:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

:I'm not linguists but based on how many those are, definitely. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

:Russian also has vowel reduction like English and it's a Slavic language like Polish, so I don't think so. Although someone who knows more than me might be able to chip in on whether the effect is stronger in English. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

::Russian vowels are a tangle of reduction indeed. I think they’re much more complicated than English vowels, but I may be biased as a native speaker of Russian who started self-studying phonetics, phonology etc. to improve his English pronunciation and only relatively briefly looked up Russian phonology for fun. But at any rate, Russian vowel reduction happens in slow and fast, formal and colloquial speech alike, pretty much universally except when articulating a word exceedingly clearly when someone can’t hear you well; and Russian consonants are generally unaffected outside of several specific clusters and morphemes, even if you include those that are fully codified in modern language but retain etymological spelling (чувство, счастье, солнце). [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 16:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I've just added a very barebones version of an explanation based on what I could understand from the comic. I can tell that the four diagrams depict that of the human mouth but since I am not a linguist, I lack the knowledge of various terms and thus, can't fully explain the comic. I understand what the comic is trying to convey, I just can't explain it. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 00:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think #4 is a real IPA symbol, but as I am not a linguist, I have no idea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.36|162.158.91.36]] 01:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:/ə̃/ is a {{w|Nasal_vowel|nasalized}} {{w|schwa}} --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.92|172.71.160.92]] 08:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

The hovertext joke is that every English speaker fully pronounces the first "t" in "Hot Potato". It's at the end of "hot". Nobody says "ha potato". [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

:Unless you mean "the glottal stop should be considered an allophone of <t> at the end of syllables" then yes they do. It's /hoʔ/, not /hotʰ/. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.198|162.158.114.198]] 03:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

:(Edit conflicted with 162, above, so this is my own reply...) I thought it was that it isn't "ho T'p otato", with the "teh-peh" awkwardness. For me, the natural way to say it is to glottalstop the first T for more "ho'potato" (the other Ts, there I find awkward ''not'' to get the "t>s<" out of, the ">s<"-tail being what makes a full-T not a lazy one). But clearly a different accent involved, as "ha" doesn't work at all for me unless I try to use some sort of (probably awful) Goodfellas-type accent. And my native accent is notoriously good at glottlestopped Ts (that most people misinpersonate badly, by attaching them to the wrong adjacent syllable).
:As for "going to", experimentally holding my finger over the length of my tongue, it seems it barely has to move at all in "going" (the whole tongue wants to rise on the "i", but I can suppress that and do the tone-change from further back, if not straight from the vocal chords). Though continuing through to the "to", with my finger in there, it's no better than "going ku" as I prevent the tongue-tip doing the necessary small movement to fulfil any form of T. I can do better through basic gastromancy, but behind my unmoving jaw and lips (''without'' the finger almost down my throat, of course), I can feel the tongue tip doing it's small but vital "crossing the T" work. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 03:53, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:For me, it's more like "hobuh-deh-duh" - so none of the t's get pronounced properly. And I'd drop the n in 'going to' before I dropped the t.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:22, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:Wunber dayder, doober dayder, freeber dayder for. (But then, oddly, uh baguv tayterz.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.58|172.70.162.58]] 13:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Unless someone's willing to start an "explain explain xkcd", I think this explanation still needs a lot of work to be intelligible to non-linguists (myself included). That aside, I do appreciate whoever took the time to type all that up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.210|162.158.166.210]] 03:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:The current explain reads, to me at least, more like a 102 lecture than an explanation of the comic. I of course have no idea what is in a 101 first week lecture so shrug. (Aside, wth? This keyboard doesn't have a tilda. Copy and paste ftw) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.38|172.71.223.38]] 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Meta-response about the {{w|tilde}}: at the top of this editing window is a bar of formatting buttons (which I mostly just try to avoid accidentally clicking when I touchscreen-scroll). The second from the right gives <code><nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki></code>, having a depiction of a signature. (The "--" is not necessary, nor does anything with actual formatting/markup, but comes from quite old text communications standards.) Personally, in this current situation of using an onscreen keyboard, my configurstion hides the tilde behind the "?123" then "=\<" change-keyboard buttons.
:::(Ironically, all three of "=", "\" and "<" are already available as long-presses of the primary keyboard layout. But the much more useful "/" is hidden behind the "?123" press, ''except'' when it explicitly detects that I'm in a browser address field. Some UI designers have strange ideas that definitely mis-mesh with my usage!)
:::That's where I usually go, to sign-off. But on physical keyboards, depending upon internationalisation options, it might be either off the top-left (left of "1" key) 'triple-key, perhaps needing Shift or AltGr fingering (from experience of US (mis)configuring), or the key in the "hook" of the <Enter> key (all my physical UK keyboards, even the most squished-up laptop ones, have that as <sub>#</sub><sup>~</sup>). If you're neither in US nor UK (and your device knows this), then where it gets shuffled out of the way of any ß, ē or ø type stuff, I wouldn't know for sure, but using the AltGr (right-Alt) ''might'' reveal characters you never ever knew you had... ;)
:::Copypasting out of the "<nowiki>Please sign your posts with ~~~~</nowiki>" Infobox or any residual from the {{template|unsigned}} templates is, of course, also a valid option. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.184|172.69.43.184]] 10:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
: I think it's fine if you can read/interpret the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA}}. If you don't it's utterly incomprehensible. I think we need some examples here as to how the sounds written here are pronounced. Like "sound <x> as in <word>" [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:: Yeah, except [[2819]] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.120|172.70.163.120]] 08:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

>Alien impersonating a human

Sounds like a normal Runglish to me, just like the one you can hear in this clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXNKUo5MrbM]

I hate that he pointed this out, because I'm going to start pronouncing things the way they're supposed to sound and everyone will think I'm weirder. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
: How are you pronouncing 'Psychoticpotato'?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.6|172.69.195.6]] 13:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
::Think of the words "psychotic" and "potato". [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I added a bit more detail to the first diagram, but I agree it's not really plain English right now. btw, maybe it's pedantic of me, but diphthongs such as /oʊ/ are one vowel, and the whole word /ɡoʊ.ɪŋ/ only has two vowels

As for "hot potato", the post-vocalic T *is* pronounced, it's pronounced as a glottal stop. T is simply pronounced differently in different positions, it's how the letter works. Randall's probably referring to the alveolar plosive /t/, which most people think of as "the T sound" and would make you sound like an alien. SMBC made the point better: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-05-08
[[User:FrustratedPhonetics|FrustratedPhonetics]] ([[User talk:FrustratedPhonetics|talk]]) 13:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
:Unless, like me, you just elide straight into the following consonant. Hock ross buns, hock ross buns, wunner penee tooer penee, hock ross buns.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.166|172.69.43.166]] 14:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
::This causes me physical discomfort. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Not exactly original, "hopotado": that's just how French works. Consonants at the end of a word are only pronounced if the following word starts on a vowel. In which case the two are drawn into one word. The cool thing about French is that knowing this little rule, you can read out a text alound and others understand even if you don't. :D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 21:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

A very small proportion of people can read and understand the IPA, and the explanation depends on knowledge of it currently. So it's a terrible explanation which needs to be written without phonetician jargon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.81|162.158.42.81]] 05:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)