explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2814: Perseids Pronunciation

2024-06-08T18:51:06Z

172.70.38.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2814
| date = August 11, 2023
| title = Perseids Pronunciation
| image = perseids_pronunciation_2x.png
| imagesize = 291x414px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When speaking out loud, you can can [sic] call it the 'Perseids meatier shower' and no one will ever know. (If you do get caught somehow, just tell them to Google the 'Kentucky meat shower' and that will distract them while you escape.)
}}

==Explanation==

This comic references the {{w|Perseids meteor shower}}, which is active in July and August. Their name ultimately derives from the ancient Greek hero ''Perseus'' (for ''his'' pronunciation, check {{w|Perseus}}). There are various ways of pronouncing ''Perseids'', and [[Randall]] gives the obvious ones before the comic spirals into virtual nonsense, or possibly parodies of {{wiktionary|va-jay-jay|common euphemistic replacement words}}. This is written from an American English perspective.

It should be noted that the last consonant is often pronounced as a "z" sound rather than "s" (the technical term is "voiced"), which is not reflected in these spellings.

{| class="wikitable"
! scope="col"| Section
! scope="col"| Term
! scope="col"| Explanation

|-
! rowspan="2"| Generally accepted
| PER-see-ids
| Standard 3-syllable English pronunciation.
|-
| PURSE-yids
| Standard 2.5 syllable pronunciation, nearly indistinguishable from the previous.
|-
! rowspan="2"| Also heard sometimes
| Per-SEE-ids
| The emPHAsis on the seCOND sylLAble is nonSTANdard.
|-
| Per-SAY-ids
| Accepted British pronunciation of Perseids with "classical" pronunciation of the "ei" digraph.
|-
! rowspan="3"| Generally frowned on
| Per-SIDES
| Two syllables with a Germanic pronunciation of the "ei" digraph.
|-
| Per-ZAY-uds
| Voiced "S" phoneme. Could be acceptable in New Zealand.
|-
| PER-suds
| Two syllables, ignoring the digraph altogether and making it schwa.
|-
!rowspan="9"| Definitely wrong
| Perky-ids
| Backformed from the C=S equivalence but from the wrong kide.
|-
| Pewpewpews
| An onomatopoeia for [[2817: Electron Holes|electron hole guns]] and fictional laser guns.
|-
| Per-say-says
| This is a tradition of rhyming lazy/cute slang, like referring to the vagina as {{wiktionary|va-jay-jay}}.
|-
| Percies
| "Percies" is plural of Percy, the short form of Perseus, and could easily be an abbreviated/informal form of "Perseids", especially when spoken.
|-
| Purps
| "Purps" is close to "Perps", a short slang form of Perpetrator (generally the person responsible for a crime). Conceivably an evolution of pronunciation from re-extending the even more abbreviated "Pers" with a new plosive ending re-added.
|-
| Percies Purps
| Together, this would be a name of a criminal gang, led by Perseus or Perseid.
|- 
| Pepsids
| "Pepsids" could refer to {{w|Famotidine|Pepcid}} (an antacid), or it could also be referencing the {{w|Pepsi}} brand, through insertion of a single plosive 'p' in the loosely pronounced original word.
|-
| Peeps
| "Peeps", derived vocally similarly to "purps", are possibly shorebirds that are not always easy to identify (for example the {{w|Least Sandpiper}}), also known as "{{w|stints}}". Or, continuing the bird theme, could directly reference {{w|Peeps|a spongy candy}} which is shaped and decorated like baby chickens. It is also a common slang term for "people"; particularly an in-group that the speaker identifies with, as in "my peeps".
|-
| Pepsids Peeps
| Together, these would be people who bond over their reliance on Pepcid (and their interest in the Perseids, hence spelling it with an S)
|}

The title text mentions how "meteor" sounds like "meatier," {{w|Homophone|although the meanings are completely different}}. It suggests telling people about the {{w|Kentucky meat shower}}, an anomalous weather event in 1876, as a [[2467: Wikipedia Caltrops|way to distract]] them. It also has the word "can" twice.

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

:How to pronounce the name of the Perseids meteor shower

:Generally accepted
::PER-see-ids
::PURSE-yids

:Also heard sometimes
::Per-SEE-ids
::Per-SAY-ids

:Generally frowned on
::Per-SIDES
::Per-ZAY-uds
::PER-suds

:''Definitely'' wrong
::Perky-ids
::Pewpewpews
::Per-say-says
::Percies Purps
::Pepsids Peeps

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

769: War

2024-05-30T21:52:57Z

172.70.38.82: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 769
| date = July 21, 2010
| title = War
| image = war.png
| titletext =They offered to make me a green beret, but I liked my regular one. Although it gets kind of squashed under my helmet.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic seems to be a parable about the perils of love during wartime. Our protagonist is seen here leaning against his pack behind a low wall, surely a good hiding spot for any gentleman with a rifle and scope. Judging by the letter he's in the midst of writing, he has a complex relationship with Cordelia. On the one hand, she's attractive. On the other hand, she's a hostile combatant, as evidenced by the shots fired mid-missive. Cordelia's fire works against her, though, as her volley of shots has revealed her own position atop the maintenance shed. We can presume that in a matter of minutes, this love affair will go sour as the love letter is wrapped around a live grenade and "delivered," so to speak. War is indeed hell.

As to the title text, the green berets are worn only by Special Forces soldiers. It takes a lot of training to become a green beret, and as evidenced by our protagonist's clever use of decoys to outwit a sniper, he may be qualified for the honor. However, evidence for his naiveté is given immediately thereafter, as he confesses that he wears a beret under his helmet — thus revealing our protagonist's true identity as [[Beret Guy]] and explaining how he fell in love with an enemy soldier actively trying to kill him.{{cn}} Then again, he does not have a choice, since [[291: Dignified|he has stapled the beret on his head.]]

"Cordelia" is possibly a reference to [http://atoracle.wikidot.com/en-cordelia-rosalind Cordelia Rosalind]—the sniper from the {{w|Miniature wargaming|miniature game}} ''{{w|Anima: Beyond Fantasy#Anima: Tactics|Anima: Tactics}}''. Alternatively, it may be a reference to {{w|List of Vorkosigan Saga characters#Barrayarans|Cordelia Naismith}} from {{w|Lois McMaster Bujold}}'s ''{{w|Shards of Honor}}''. In the book, Cordelia Naismith and Lord Aral Vorkosigan are on opposite sides of the Beta-Barrayar war, and fall in love while forced to spend a week in each other's company on an unpopulated planet. This may be further corroborated by the green color of Beret Guy's uniform, which is very similar to the color used for the uniforms of the Barrayan Imperial Service.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy with a green helmet on is sitting on the ground behind a low wall, leaning against his pack and writing a letter.]
:My Dearest Cordelia,
:it has been far too long since I last gazed
:upon your lithe and supple body through my
:telescopic sights, and I fear you may have
:found a superior vantage poin—

:''BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!''

:—a splendid effort, my love, but your shots
:find only a decoy, and reveal your position atop
:the maintenance shed.

:I pray this missive and my grenades find you well.

:War is hell.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:2893: Sphere Tastiness

2024-02-13T19:21:17Z

172.70.38.82:

base balls are delicious after boiling and peeling[[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.212|172.68.64.212]] 00:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:You seem to be confusing baseballs with eggs. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]])
:And who the hell calls baseballs “bAsE bAlLs”. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 02:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

who's the authority on whether or not the earth and the moon are "not tasty"????, i think the moon would be pretty delicious actually [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.71|172.69.71.71]] 00:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)GR8GH
:Some Apollo astronauts reported that moondust tastes and smells like gunpowder. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
::Yum! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 02:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
::Sounds {{w|Gunpowder_tea|delicious}} to me.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.26|172.70.85.26]] 11:09, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:Sure, if you like green cheese! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.123|172.70.207.123]] 03:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
::I actually quite like a good blue cheese, and had a blue (red) leicester only yesterday. But some actual sage derby would fulfil the role of a green one quite tastily. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.112|141.101.99.112]] 04:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
::{{w|Green_cheese}} can be perfectly tasty - it's just a young unaged cheese.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.26|141.101.99.26]] 11:13, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:"Not like any cheese I've ever tasted"-Wallace

In Fuck Grapefruits, watermelons were just slightly tasty. Does he like other melons so much that the average melon is as tasty as grapes? Or has he learned how delicious watermelon actually is? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:I think that he probably just learned how delicious watermelon is. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 02:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:Watermelon is different genus (albeit in the same family) to most melons, so I'd assume watermelon is excluded here.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.162|172.69.194.162]] 11:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

This comic is begging for another of his four-corner plots, not a line graph. Ball bearings: lower left. Bowling balls: middle bottom. Tapioca: upper left. Cheese balls: upper middle. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.123|172.70.207.123]] 03:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:My first thought was that he clearly isn't accounting for frequency, because I'm pretty sure there's a ''lot'' more oranges than baseballs...
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 05:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

It's a linear interpolation, Michael. How big could the error be? 10%? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.166|108.162.245.166]] 03:51, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Grapes are spherical? I guess some varieties. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 04:12, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

With a logarithmic x axis and an unlabelled y axis, I find calling it “linear interpolation” without further explanation disingenious. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.121|172.68.110.121]] 08:08, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I think we have to give serious consideration as to how untasty the Sun is, and the possibility of subatomic particles being absolutely delicious. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.189|172.69.79.189]] 10:07, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:Can't we just ask whoever tasted quarks to figure out the different flavours?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.24|172.69.195.24]] 11:22, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Baseballs aren't the only questionable object for this theory..... think of the marbles!!!--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 12:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

In looking for something else that might fulfil the 800m sphere criteria I stumbled across [https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/p0qws3/self_if_you_blended_all_788_billion_people_on/ this] :o(| I'll make no comment on potential tastiness.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.191|172.70.90.191]] 12:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:Soylent Green meatball. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Galactus would totally disagree with this graph. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.25|172.70.175.25]] 16:24, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
:As would Unicron... and Dormammu...
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Here's a link to a mile-long hotdog [https://www.lifeinthecarolinas.com/syndicated-columns/2018/3/6/miles-and-miles-of-hotdogs-from-an-igloo miles-of-hotdog], while technically not a single hotdog nor a sphere it's a mile's worth of hotdogs. I recall there once being created a mile-long submarine / hoagie / po-boy sandwich, but couldn't find it on a quick google search. That also is not remotely spherical. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 16:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

The moon is made of delicious cheese, isn't it? That would put it in the upper right corner.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.15|172.71.102.15]] 16:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Giant peaches?

Am I reading this wrong, or is the mark for grapes just slightly to the left of the tick for 10^-1 m? Which suggests that grapes are about 8 cm wide? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.82|172.70.38.82]] 19:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2784: Drainage Basins

2023-06-10T14:20:30Z

172.70.38.82: triple divide peak comment

For anyone else who didn’t recognize “Alex Mack” and was confused when the first result on Wikipedia was an American football player with seemingly no reference to the joke at hand, I’m pretty sure this is referencing “Alex Mack” from “The Secret Life of Alex Mack” which was a Nickelodeon TV show in the 1990s. One of their powers is turning into water.
:Thanks! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.213|172.69.22.213]] 00:42, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:I know of her by way of reading Diane Castle's work, <em>The Secret Return of Alex Mack</em>, which basically took over the Alex Mack fanfiction scene. Hadn't heard of the original until then. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.66.96|172.68.66.96]] 03:56, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I need to point out: Turning into a puddle of liquid is not a superpower. Anyone can do that. Turning back into a solid human again afterwards is the tricky part. ~ [[User:Xxj|Xxj]] ([[User talk:Xxj|talk]]) 04:12, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:I think turning into a puddle of liquid ''at will'' counts as a superpower. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.132|172.69.134.132]] 04:23, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
::Most things which a typical person does are typically done at will (other than breathing, sleeping, sneezing, and posting comments on the internet). ~ [[User:Xxj|Xxj]] ([[User talk:Xxj|talk]]) 04:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:Found the editor who has never had to dispose of a body. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.138|172.69.134.138]] 08:48, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Man I thought this was about the kid who jumped off the cruise ship on a dare this week and got pulled under, and was really weirded out that he would joke about that, really happy to see I was dead wrong. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.168.144|172.68.168.144]]

: he got a Darwin Award, not an XKCD comic [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.33|172.68.210.33]] 18:47, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

"approximately twice the volume of a typical human being"—that implies there was already a witch in the lake previously. After we add the wWotW, there are two dissolved witches. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.3|162.158.94.3]] 04:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:It's Utah. On the basis of that alone, I'm surprised that there was only one. [[User:Vikinghelmet99|Vikinghelmet99]] ([[User talk:Vikinghelmet99|talk]]) 05:39, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
::The first witch was famously house-struck, not 'melted'. (Then sublimed, though ''perhaps'' condensed/redissolved off-screen the next time it rained.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.187|172.69.79.187]] 09:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Oz is "famously not in Kansas" -- ha! Nicely done.

I didn't know what Drainage Basin was. I first thought it meant which ocean will come and cover this part of land if global warming continues. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 06:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:If it goes badly enough, that'd be the Neo-{{w|Panthalassic Ocean}}... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.8|172.70.86.8]] 09:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
:Funnily enough, that's also a valid interpretation of a map like this (if your definition of "global warming" is expansive enough to include events like the Europa-Dutch dumping all their world's volatiles on us). Water runs off in exactly the same direction from which the sea would rise, so anywhere in the Mississippi Valley, for instance, would get flooded as an extension of the Gulf of Mexico. The [[2325: Endorheic Basin|endorheic basins]] (on this map, "Great" or "Various") are exceptions: they're areas which would flood more catastrophically due to water running down into them, as in [[1190: Time|Time]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.225|172.69.58.225]] 01:17, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
::While true, watershed maps abstract away information about elevation, which is more important for predicting what sea level rise will do than drainage. It's complicated by river flow volume and speed, geographical features, etc., but never significant more than a few hundred km above an estuary. Basically, if and only if the river has measurable tides, it will be affected by sea level rise (that almost goes without saying that way.) So Florida will be a lot more screwed than 90% of people's local Mississippi. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.44|172.71.158.44]] 11:51, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

The explanation says: "Seven trillionths of its 18.93 cubic km volume is about 130 liters, which is approximately twice the volume of a typical human being"
There have been stories recently that the water level is way down. Does that volume take this into account?

As a resident of the US Midwest, I'm minorly annoyed by the missing drainage "leak" from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico due to the reversal of their river (first time commentator sorry for any edit error!) [[User:E sandrs|E sandrs]] ([[User talk:E sandrs|talk]]) 13:49, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

re: the change of "swathe" to "swath", and the summary explanation of tte Grammarian reason (that one is a noun, the other a verb)... Well, I'll accept that I was incorrect, but not in that way. I'm British and I honestly didn't know that {{wiktionary|swathe#Etymology_3|(noun) "swathes"}} had an alternate Leftpondian spelling.
:(Or pronunciation. Not sure I'd pronounce "swath" as /sweɪð/, ever, and I'd never say /swɒθ/ even for the mowing "swath", but that might just be my specific regional vernacular on top of being generally Rightpondian.)
:I'm happy to be corrected(/Americanised, not necessarily the same thing), but I'd not like that kind editor to think I did it 'wrong' for the wrong reason. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.242|172.70.162.242]] 16:59, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

To add to the list of pedantic errors: there's a mountain called Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park (in NW Montana) where water from that mountain can go to the pacific, the gulf of Mexico, or Hudson bay. Technically the Hudson bay basin must extend into Montana at least a little bit. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.82|172.70.38.82]] 14:20, 10 June 2023 (UTC)