explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1179: ISO 8601

2023-07-03T00:20:46Z

172.69.134.70:

Apparently there are some mistakes in the Roman numerals in the comic, the year MMXII is 2012. Also LVII/CCLXV = 57/265, whereas February 27th is the 58th day of the year (which has 365 days). --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 07:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:Just guessing, but could this have something to do with the divergence of various Roman calendars, e.g. Julian vs. Gregorian? [[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 13:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:Another error: Obviously 1330300800 is intended to be Unix time, but it corresponds to 2012-02-27 00:00:00 UTC. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 08:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:The day part "57" is not wrong: Since Feb 27 is the 58th day of the year, at the beginning of that day, 57 days have gone by since the year started. (At the end of the day, 58 days have gone by) Since we associate days with their beginning (like we do with e.g. hours and minutes), 57 is the correct number (or else Dec 31 would be 2013+365/365 = 2014, and therefore in the wrong year) -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 13:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::The day part is ambiguous. It could be as Xorg suggests, the fraction of the year past at the start of the day. On the other hand it could be interpreted as "day 57 or 365," as with pieces in a shipment or page numbers. In the latter case it should be 58/265. But then, that (ambiguity) is the point, isn't it? [[User:Jqavins|Jqavins]] ([[User talk:Jqavins|talk]]) 17:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::Meanwhile the comic was replaced, with CCLXV corrected to CCCLXV. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) Prima vigilia, XVI Kal. Mar. MMDCCLXVI
::I was just about to publish my theory of how "2012" in the Roman numerals in just the same vein might be intended to indeed represent the year we denote "2013", but by counting only the finished years. This would also connect with the confusion over {{w|year zero}}, another thing that ISO 8601 tried to straighten out. (They placed it before year 1.) Everything fit so well. Then there was an edit conflict, following Randalls correction to "2013". I guess you can't always be right. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:03, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone explain 01237 (last interpretation before the cat)? Thanks [[Special:Contributions/68.230.38.154|68.230.38.154]] 08:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:The small numbers above and below the larger ones show which digit is used where. For example, the 2nd and 5th digit is a 0, the 3rd digit is a 1 etc. [[Special:Contributions/82.115.151.1|82.115.151.1]] 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:01237 are the digits used in the date, and the numbers above and below them reflect the order in which they are written; 0 is the second and fifth digit, 1 is the third digit, 2 is the first, sixth and seventh digit, 3 is the fourth digit, and 7 is the eighth digit: 20130227 [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Someone can explain me what means: ((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33? {{unsigned|95.23.147.48}}
:Read the comic explanation. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Many of these format mirror how the dates are spoken in languages. For example, Americans will say "February 27, 2013" and write "2/27/2013", whereas the French will say "27 février 2013" and write "27-02-2013". As a scientist, I was encouraged to write "27 II 2013" (which is apparently standard in Hungary, according to the explanation above) in my lab notebook to avoid ambiguity. --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 13:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

A strange thing is that he forgot the form mostly used in Europe: 27.01.2013. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:: That form is mostly used in Germany. Belgium and France use 27/01/2013 more, Netherlands use 27-01-2013. No idea what the UK prefers although I could imagine 01.27.2013.[[Special:Contributions/62.159.14.62|62.159.14.62]] 12:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::: The UK prefers 27/02/2013 --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 13:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::: That form (27.02.2013) is also common in all of Scandinavia. --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 14:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::::It's also widely used in Poland, alongside with 27 II 2013, mentioned above, and also in the comic (though we use space as separator in this format, rather than dot) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.206|162.158.88.206]] 23:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The image text has a subtle twist as "12/01/04" offers no contextual clues to it meaning at all, can be read three different ways : "December 1st 2004", "January 12, 2004" or "January 4th, 2012" (as opposed to, for example, "01/15/98" which could only be interrupted as "January 15th, 1998") [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 14:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
: Technically speaking, it could also be interpreted as April 1st 2012 or April 12th 2001, though that would be the least likely interpretation. I personally like spelling out 3 letters of the month and using an apostrophe before the year, such as 27 Feb '13. --[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 15:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:: And of course December, 4th 2001 Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.118.249|178.26.118.249]] 19:54, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to convert the time-stamp placed on these comments to the YYYY-MM-DD format? --16:17, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
: If you're logged in, you can set your [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime|date and time preferences]]. I doubt it will affect the timestamps on this page, though, since those appear to be saved as plain text. --[[User:Aaron of Mpls|Aaron of Mpls]] ([[User talk:Aaron of Mpls|talk]]) 23:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I feel like the cat thing is a reference to something, but I'm not sure what... is it something? A quick google image search pulls up nothing. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:26, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
: Seems to me that Randall missed an opportunity: Why a cat? Why not a '''bob'''cat? It still could be some other reference that I'm missing too.
:: Black cats are considered unlucky. I don't see any reference beyond that. [[User:Mattflaschen|Mattflaschen]] ([[User talk:Mattflaschen|talk]]) 17:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::: It's taking the last two digits from 2013 and emphasizing triskaidekaphobia. Doing a web image search on "Cat 13" will pull up similar artwork of hissing black cats combined with the number 13, including both flyers for Friday 13th drink specials at bars, and combat airplane noseart. Apparently combining the unlucky "13" with an unlucky black cat emphasized that they were bad luck for the enemy. [[User:Columbus Admission|Columbus Admission]] ([[User talk:Columbus Admission|talk]]) 19:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:::: "You're a Kitty!" http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=231
::::: The cat's "Hissss" could be a reference to timestamp formats in PHP web programming, where the desired date format is generally followed by "H:i:s", the standard 24-hour time format. That would explain the specifically lowercase "i" in the cat's hiss.[[Special:Contributions/208.87.234.180|208.87.234.180]] 13:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
:: It might be a reference to Industrial Workers of the World; IWW frequently used a hissing black cat as a symbol, especially in reference to sabotage and so-called "wildcat strikes," and the illustration used resembles the one seen here [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Anarchist_black_cat.svg] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.151|172.70.214.151]] 22:08, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Cool, this is my birthday. [[User:Mattflaschen|Mattflaschen]] ([[User talk:Mattflaschen|talk]]) 17:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

"However the list then starts listing formats ranging from uncommon to absurd, such as writing the date partly in Roman numerals [...] " -
My math teacher uses a very similar format (in reverse order, d/m/yy, with m being in Roman numerals, because this is Germany (see above)), so I wouldn't call it absurd. She is the only person I know who uses it though. [[Special:Contributions/87.189.150.212|87.189.150.212]] 19:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The image and explanation needs to be updated for the corrections. I could do the explanation part, but I have no idea how to do the image part. And one without the other would be confusing for the readers, so I'll leave that to wiki-magic. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 21:09, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

: I updated the image as well as the explanation (and transcript). There is still the error on the Unix timestamp though (will this comic be fixed a third time?...). - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 21:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Sweden uses the ISO 8601 format. (If only food producers could understand this as well..)
[[Special:Contributions/46.59.16.141|46.59.16.141]] 21:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

- What can we learn from this? - I've learned that no matter the system we use today to communicate with others, it's probably seems silly for someone else. It's great to document what we do and propose it as an option to others, but it will be next to impossible to force them to adopt. When someone will develop a time reference that makes sense to everyone, it will be adopted all over the world without much effort. - e-inspired [[Special:Contributions/24.51.197.187|24.51.197.187]] 19:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the cat (because of the vagueness of the system) was referring to not the 27th of February 2013. but instead referring to the 13th of February in 1327 which would make it Friday the 13th. {{unsigned|66.35.1.98}}

Just so you know, Explainxkcd wiki uses the ISO certified date standard for its "All Comics" page. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Personally I've always preferred to use Year-Month-Day my personal stuff. I like it because the format is written the way we write any other number: Most significant to left, least significant to right. I didn't know this was a standardized method and I've always wondered why it wasn't used. Nice to know it is![[Special:Contributions/172.191.224.64|172.191.224.64]] 04:09, 28 February 2013 (UTC)ExternalMonologue

Personally, I like yyyy-mm-dd because it sorts correctly. I really hate running into a list of dates sorted by month name, or worse, day of the week. I suspect this was part of why ISO chose this format. I've never been able to remember the american vs european ordering... My only other options is: February 27, 2013. [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 12:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

: I'm not sure what standard the Canadian Military officially uses, but as soldiers we were all taught to use a "7 Feb 2013" format when writing dates. Seems the most clear and concise to me. {{unsigned|24.85.225.143}}

:: Most of the dates I've seen used by the Canadian Military have been of that format but have only used 2-digit years - e.g. 27 Feb 13 (they didn't learn from Y2K!) {{unsigned|64.140.113.219}}

- What can we learn from this? - I've learned that keeping our time relative to earth rotation is outdated, we keep having to add seconds here and there just to keep time. And as an engineer don't get me started on complexity of mktime function. I personally think of time as oscillation of a flawed crystal in my circuits that I constantly need to keep accounting for through endless calibrations, and keep wishing that better time references would be cheaper (to me good is never good enough) - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 15:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha E-inspired you should read the "falsehoods programmers believe about times" http://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time http://infiniteundo.com/post/25509354022/more-falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time-wisdom [[Special:Contributions/75.103.23.206|75.103.23.206]] 20:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

:Dude, you've just made my DAY! I forgot the last time I've laughed as hard. Why didn't I know about this site before? - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 20:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is the date of this comic written as "February 27, 2013" and not "2013-02-27"? [[Special:Contributions/93.73.186.104|93.73.186.104]] 08:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The hover hint says "ISO 8601 was published on 06/05/88 and most recently amended on 12/01/04." which must be a joke - because it is impossible to know whether these days are 6 May 1988 and 12 January 2004 or 5 June 1988 and 1 December 2004. Why make a comic about ISO 8601 then use ambiguous dates in the hint? {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.95}}
:I had always assumed that the title text was poking fun at ISO for not complying with their own standard. Looking at the ISO website today, I'm disappointed to find that this is, in fact, not the case. Perhaps three years ago it was. [[User:Zeusfaber|Zeusfaber]] ([[User talk:Zeusfaber|talk]]) 17:07, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Amateurs, you don't put periods in format with roman month number. So it's 27 II 2012 [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.209|141.101.89.209]] 12:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The chief advantage of the American system is that placing the year last makes it easy to simply drop the year in casual conversation, given how slowly years change. While it might technically follow just as logically to have the day precede the month, in practice the sequence means less for the first two numbers. The 31 days or fewer between month changes are relatively frequent, while the 365.25 days between year changes can easily go "out of sight, out of mind" except when approaching a transition. In either case, placing the nigh-irrelevant year number first in the text string causes the reader to pay attention to that number first, and have to "skip ahead" to discover the month and day, when in truth the day is the most salient datapoint. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.52|173.245.54.52]] 20:58, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
: Hmm... The comic's point is about '''writing''' dates as '''numbers'''... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.180.215|162.158.180.215]] 09:47, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
: Don't write "America" when you mean "USA". In most of America (and most of the rest of the world) the traditional order is D/M/Y, which makes it even simpler to drop more significant parts in casual conversation. E.g. "it's the 27th of February 2013" becomes "it's the 27th of February" when the year is known and just "it's the 27th" when also the month is known. In my country we traditionally had D/M/Y but we are approaching ISO inch by inch. Personally I've used ISO and four digit year since around 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country /David A [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.33|141.101.80.33]] 22:01, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Source for the claim about the Swedish date format. I have never seen it, we have been using the ISO-format since before it was defined (I started school 1980 and learned to write dates in the first year or two), not even in old books, movies or similar.

Re: [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1179:_ISO_8601&oldid=223421 undoing to a 'working' version] of the penultimate format... Undid version isn't perfect (superscripts and subscripts still prior/next characters from nominally-scripted main digits, rather than above and below), but this one doesn't work at all here. Looks like (describing, in leiu of reliable rendering)... Zero, One, Two-with-small-two-as-cap Three Seven (lower-script Three One Four, in-line) Five Six Seven Eight. ...essentially, just one off-size number is conceivably placed where it might be, and even that isn't on the right 'parent' character.

<ruby><rb>0</rb><rt>1</rt></ruby><ruby><rb>2</rb><rt>3</rt></ruby> (displays correctly on one computer, fails on another)

This clearly is not rendering properly, but not sure how without extensive fiddling that'll ''probably'' break things on the browser that currently thinks this reversion renders correctly. Perhaps yet ''another'' method of text-mangling is needed in this case? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.32|141.101.99.32]]

Usually I’m pretty apathetic about America moving to any global standard (I ''like'' imperial units, they’re a lot more usefully sized), but I really want it to switch to YYYY/MM/DD just to mess with people on the internet (Europeans mostly, from what I can tell) who absolutely insist that DD/MM/YYYY is the only format that “normal” people use. Plus then the yearless format would stay the same — both would be MM/DD. [[User:Intara|Intara]] ([[User talk:Intara|talk]]) 03:41, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
:As a 'European' (well, for ''part'' of my life, being in the UK) and being active in Y2K mitigation across a US-owned corporation. I normally default to DD/Mmm/YYYY, to make it abundantly clear to people what I mean, but will go with YYYYMMDD (with optional hhmm[ss[.dd]]] appended) for computerised instances where I've got no pre-existing preference (e.g. days-since-Epoch or ISO format) already there or in the pipeline. The detection and conversion of the intended format is usually easy enough, for both human and electronic recipients (if suitably clued up, in both cases, e.g. knowing the English names for months and thus their unique abbrvs). And if someone converts DD/Mmm/YYYY to Mmm/DD/YYYY then I won't quibble too much, as they're sufficiently disambiguating their (odd) preference as well! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.114|172.70.230.114]] 14:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

They didn't mention Julian Day. It uses just one real number. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.70|172.69.134.70]] 00:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2793: Garden Path Sentence

2023-07-03T00:12:42Z

172.69.134.70:

The bot didn't upload the most recent comic so I tried to do it myself, but I think I screwed it up :([[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 18:31, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the term "bird strikes" should be interpreted as a plural noun, given the two Xs on the map. Something like "After bird strikes, judge ... overturned but rights and lands safely" [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.8|172.69.59.8]] 20:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
: Or it could be the bird strikes judge... You know, the one who was the judge in an important and well-known "bird strikes" case, possibly environmental, possibly an insurance scam case or something.[[User:Thisfox|Thisfox]] ([[User talk:Thisfox|talk]]) 21:46, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
:I'd rather think the first x is where the plane was struck and overturned and the second one where it righted --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.251.35|172.70.251.35]] 11:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the current interpretation is wrong, but "olive garden" could be the lower-case-when-not-a-comics-headline descriptor for, you know, an actual garden of olive trees. That makes more sense when referring to green walkways. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 20:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Can someone also parse the alt-text? I still can't figure it out. -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.176|162.158.154.176]] 20:39, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
:I think it's saying the arboretum owner (who is appealing the case) is himself appealing. I'm still having trouble with the grounds grounds portion though. :([[User:*anonymouse*|*anonymouse*]] ([[User talk:*anonymouse*|talk]]) 20:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
::He was ''appealing'' the lawsuit on the ''grounds'' that the ''grounds'' were ''appealing'' [[User:Ahecht|Ahecht]] ([[User talk:Ahecht|talk]]) 22:06, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Going by the picture I think the "bird" that struck the judge may be the plane.
:Disagree, "{{w|bird strike}}" is a term used for an incident where a bird strikes a vehicle, usually a plane. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.155|172.70.211.155]] 20:50, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
:But all these conflicting interpretations proves Randall's point that this is a garden path sentence :) [[User:Natg19|Natg19]] ([[User talk:Natg19|talk]]) 20:52, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

[[User:*anonymouse*|*anonymouse*]] please reconsider your edits; before them, I think I understood the meaning, but your supposed clarification messed it up :( the paragraph you removed seemed more plausible to me, and it also contained some useful wiki links to {{w|bird strike}} and {{w|vacated judgement}}. [[User:Torzsmokus|Torzsmokus]] ([[User talk:Torzsmokus|talk]]) 20:47, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

As I understood it, birds hit the plane piloted by the judge that gave the Olive Garden path sentence, overturning it (!!!), but he righted it and managed to land. [[User:J Petry|J Petry]] ([[User talk:J Petry|talk]]) 20:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

A [[wikipedia:bird strike]] is an aviation thing. Given the airplane in the photo and the path to what appears to be runways, I think that these are the bird strikes it's referring to. "Rights and lands safely" also would refer to the judge piloting an airplane. "Overturned" thus should also refer to the flight, but I would expect it to be something like "overturns", not "overturned", given "rights and lands". Thus: "After bird strikes, the judge who ordered the sentence overturned in the olive garden path case, his plane overturned, but rights the aircraft and lands it safely." [[User:SheeEttin|SheeEttin]] ([[User talk:SheeEttin|talk]]) 20:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, and I think you're right. After (multiple) bird strikes the (plane being flown by the judge) overturned but was able to right itself. :([[User:*anonymouse*|*anonymouse*]] ([[User talk:*anonymouse*|talk]]) 20:57, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I feel certain that "olive" refers to the shade of green, because otherwise why specify "green" walkways? This makes "Olive Garden" a red herring, which seems likely. -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.244|108.162.245.244]] 21:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

:I disagree. I read "olive garden" as a literal garden of olive trees. Randall is exploiting our familiarity with the Olive Garden restaurant to construct the sentence. The path would be a footpath or something through this garden. What makes the walkways green? No idea, maybe they're the kind that are actually solar panels. [[User:SheeEttin|SheeEttin]] ([[User talk:SheeEttin|talk]]) 22:10, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

:: I would interpret "green walkway" as meaning a picturesque walkway going through a forest, public gardens, or similar, which fits in with the olive trees. Searching for the term on Wikipedia suggests this expression is more commonly used in England than in the US. [[User:Hmj|Hmj]] ([[User talk:Hmj|talk]]) 05:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

::: As an American, I assumed exactly the same meaning for "green walkway". I see no reason to interpret "olive" as a color in this comic. The primary meaning of "olive garden path" is definitely a path within a garden where olives are grown. The idea of "olive" referring to the color green could be mentioned as a possible alternative explanation but should not be the primary one. [[User:CarLuva|CarLuva]] ([[User talk:CarLuva|talk]]) 13:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

::::You wouldn't grow olives in a garden, they'd be in an orchard or a grove. [[User:Ahecht|Ahecht]] ([[User talk:Ahecht|talk]]) 19:19, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I still don't like "overturned but rights and lands" - why would the first verb be in the past tense and the others present tense, if they are describing events that happened within a very short time of each other? Wouldn't a headline be entirely in the present tense? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.102|162.158.159.102]] 05:10, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
: Because it had to overturn first (in the past) before it could right and land. It's a valid use of tense, using the past tense helps establish the sequence of events. Simpler sentences only use 3 tenses: past, present, and future, so in such a sentence, since none of the three events are in the future, two must share a tense. It could also have been "overturned, righted, and lands safely.", with two being past tense and the last being present. Getting less simple would be "had overturned, then righted so it lands safely", to give each term its own tense. Alternatively, because they're separate parts of the sentence: "Overturned" is that a court case sentence was overturned, which was further in the past, before this flight, but the most current event - that the judge rights the plane and lands the plane - is being listed in present tense, as the most current thing to happen. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:13, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

: This bothers me as well, but I don't see a way around it. It's possible that the case was "the case of the green walkways vacated," but then we need a valid parsing of "After bird strikes judge who ordered sentence overturned but rights and lands safely." Failing that, I'm prepared to conclude that the mixed case is either an error or a deliberate fudging of the norm for the sake of making it more confusing. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.140|172.71.147.140]] 18:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

: I am convinced that "overturned" is referring to the case, and "vacated" is referring to the walkways. That keeps the verb tense for the pilot/judge consistent: "rights" and "lands". The judge ordered the "olive garden path" sentence be overturned in the "case of green walkways vacated". In other words, the walkways were vacated, which led to an "olive garden path sentence", and that sentence was overturned, and the judge/pilot "rights and lands" the plane safely. Verb tense is one of the few hints on how to parse something so convoluted, and there's no better argument I can see for the current interpretation above that applies "overturned" to the plane itself. So, the plane was not overturned, but did need to be righted. [[User:DanShock|DanShock]] ([[User talk:DanShock|talk]]) 15:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

This also suggests the plane was overturned by some external factor, rather than just overturning by itself.

I had understood that an actual flying animal - a bird - bounced off the judge's head - in present tense, the bird strikes the judge - which made it flip over, but it managed to right itself and properly land, as if that's important. I honestly feel like this interpretation of "bird" makes more sense than an airplane being involved. Also that it adds humour, since how is the bird important enough to care that it recovered, and care ENOUGH that it should be mentioned in the headline. :) (I hadn't gotten around to trying to figure out the rest, felt too difficult until I read the concept of a garden path sentence) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:03, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
: Check that, JUST noticed the PICTURE of a judge standing in front of a plane, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 15:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't help but feel a better (worse?) sentence would be "After bird strikes judge who ordered olive garden path sentence in case of emergency exits vacated overturned but rights and lands safely", playing off familiarity with the phrase "in case of emergency" and the fact that "exit" is both a verb and a noun. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.223|172.71.242.223]] 13:39, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm usually the one seeking explanation here. All the discussion above is actually the funny part because Garden Path sentences can't be properly parsed!
:The above unsigned comment may mislead. Garden path sentences ''can'' be parsed because they are syntactically correct. (Indeed, the point is that they allow multiple correct parsings and so give rise to multiple semantic interpretations some of which are humorously implausible.) Perhaps the commentator intended a specialized meaning of "proper" to mean something like "uniquely," but I was unable to find similar uses online. [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 14:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
::While a GPS might indeed have multiple 'correct' parsings (perhaps leading to ambiguity as to which was the intended context of assemblage), I think the point is mote that it has multiple ''intermediate'' parsings, like snaking through a maze of grammatical interpretations. If, just inside the 'maze entrance', you decide the second word is a noun you may then follow just as convoluted a path of subsequent rationalisations as if you had tentatively parsed it as a verb.
::In both cases you may have further choices to make, in senses relatively unique to how you got there, or obvious singular presumptions, or both (if start with noun, fourth word in may seem to clearly be a verb; if started with verb, you now may need to treat fourth as noun which leads directly fo the fifth as an adverb or fourth+fifth as an atomic noun-phrase...). But whichever path you travel ''might'' end up "in the scrub", unable to get through inpenetrable undergrowth that now lies between you and the furthest extent of the "garden".
:So you have to think (check that you're definitely going down the wrong parsing-route), backtrack, perhaps ponder if an 'obvious' syntax part way through might not have a different valid parsable interpretation. In the worst case scenario, though, you may find yourself having to start off (almost) from the beginning again, and having to try again making the original noun/verb interpretation differently. And trying not to get sidetracked by memories of what was 'so obvious' in the different original route of parsing the syntactical tree, but makes less sense during this approach. Unless it actually does make sense (unlikely as it might have been), and is now the valid (but obscure) parsing-route to the end that avoids ''yet another'' red herring sub-branch of understanding... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.154|172.70.86.154]] 15:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I think a useful addition to all the "the whole sentence could be" ideas, which could subsume all the "this bit could be read as...", would be to do a table or header-list of how each sequential chain of words might be interpreted. Such as:
:... '''bird''': a dinosaur; '''bird strikes''': multiple {{w|Bird strike|aviation incidents}}; '''strikes''': something or someone impacting a target; '''strikes''': where an idea suddenly occurred to a person; '''strikes judge''': a justice of the peace who a) adjudicated, or b) took part in, {{w|industrial action}}; '''Judge Who''': a person's name/honorific; '''who ordered olive garden path''': a possible question; '''ordered Olive''': commanded someone called Olive to do something; '''olive garden''': an area for growing {{w|Olive|Olea Europaea}} shrubs; '''garden path''': a trail or access through an aesthetically-designed space of cultivation; '''garden path sentence''': <ibid>; '''sentence in case''': a ruling made following a legal hearing; '''in case of''': indicates a conditional statement''; ...
Here squashed together (and many omissions made, even within that sub-chain), just to get the idea together. Perhaps, in table form, indexed by "(OPTIONAL)FOO <one or more adjacent words> (OPTIONAL)BAR" with something like "the FOO <undergoes an action of> some BAR", and add a reference to each (<placing of start-word>.<number of words>(<optional alphabetic index to distinguish exact overlaps of different distinctions>?), then a valid complete sentence (or composite partial section) can be described like "1.1 2.1 3.2b 5.2 7.1 8.1 9.3c 12...", or any another variation that a reader might want to then summarise/expand with a "plain English"/unambiguous 'translation'. And all existing work/exposition can be folded into this in a more structured and less randomly-conversational manner. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.47|162.158.74.47]] 19:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Newspaper headlines like that are fun. Best one so far: "Police stops speeding car with unsecured baby" [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.161|172.68.50.161]] 07:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)