Talk:2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas

2024-06-27T05:58:57Z

162.158.86.100: Hawaii position

Seems weird that it's just the contiguous US, with "hints" about what lies within. I hope Randall will release another version with the rest of the world included.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.61|162.158.158.61]] 03:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Would the center be both poles ''and'' Kansas's antipode? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.27.150|172.68.27.150]] 03:58, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Including Hawaii would have been the cherry on the cake. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.174|198.41.242.174]] 05:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

: As the center of the map corresponds to Kansas' antipode, Hawaii shouldn't be "at the center", but slightly to the right of the center (in the direction of the "Pacific Ocean" tag). --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.100|162.158.86.100]] 05:58, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2942: Fluid Speech

2024-06-06T21:38:46Z

162.158.86.100:

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)

Talk:2922: Pub Trivia

2024-04-19T14:42:58Z

162.158.86.100:

I expect that the BTS question is a reference to the traditional Korean system of counting a person's age in units of Sal which started at 1 and incremented on the first day of the year. Since this system was abandoned on official documents in 2023, but is still in use in some contexts, the question of whether every member of BTS had a "birthday" on the first day of the year is ambiguous. [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 14:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

question 5, planets exist outside the solar system, adding to the ambiguity. [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 14:15, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

As for question 9, please see the note about the history of Austrailia's capitals at: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_national_capitals#Oceania]]. and the page regarding countries with multiple capitals [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_multiple_capitals]] [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 14:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

About the alt text, London is certainly in Europe. The question itself is malformed because "Europe (or 'the EU')" is not self-consistent: there is a lot of European countries that are not part of the EU. [[User:RedGolpe|RedGolpe]] ([[User talk:RedGolpe|talk]]) 14:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benxi Benxi Lake] is actually considered to be the smallest lake in the world. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.135.205|172.70.135.205]]
:{{cn}}[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.176|172.70.86.176]] 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I never realized how challenging it is to edit pages when they've just been posted. Makes me long for something like Google docs.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.43|172.68.3.43]] 14:39, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

People, who are born on 29th February don't have a birthday in years which are not leap years. However, 2024, when this comic was published is a leap year. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.95.9|162.158.95.9]] 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

"5. How many planets were there originally?" This could also refer even back to the start of the universe, when there were (likely) just 0 planets.

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas

Talk:2942: Fluid Speech

Talk:2922: Pub Trivia