explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1087: Cirith Ungol

2012-08-06T11:32:26Z

BJL:

I don't think this is correct: "Another possibility of the ambiguity is that the author, E. B. White, was saved from being slaughtered by Charlotte."

The ambiguous sentence is: 'Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.'

"American author E. B. White" and "who is saved..." are separated by "about a pig named Wilbur" which references the novel.

So the relative clause "who is saved..." cannot reference "American author E. B. White".

[[User:BJL|BJL]] ([[User talk:BJL|talk]]) 05:22, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I've deleted the sentence cited above from the page.
[[User:BJL|BJL]] ([[User talk:BJL|talk]]) 07:32, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

1087: Cirith Ungol

2012-08-06T11:30:34Z

BJL: /* Description */

{{ComicHeader|1087|July 27, 2012}}
[[File:cirith_ungol.png|My all-time favorite example of syntactic ambiguity comes from Wikipedia: 'Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.']]

== Image Text ==
My all-time favorite example of syntactic ambiguity comes from Wikipedia: 'Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.'

== Description ==
The comic here is a mash up between the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy of books and movies and the novel and movie ''Charlotte's Web''.

The title Cirith Ungol is a reference to ''Lord of the Rings'' where Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were led to Cirith Ungol by Gollum to the lair of the ancient spider Shelob.

And therefore in this comic, Frodo (by himself) is being led into the lair of the spider, Charlotte. We can tell by the "Some Pig" writing in the spider web on the lower right hand corner which is a direct reference to the story of ''Charlotte's Web'', in which a spider named Charlotte writes the very same text in her web.

In the image text, syntactic ambiguity is a property of sentences which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, or reasonably interpreted to mean more than one thing.

The ambiguity of the sentence quoted is that the pig named Wilbur could have been saved by Charlotte from being slaughtered by someone or could have been saved by someone from being slaughtered by Charlotte.

[[Category:Comics|1087]]

== Impact ==
This comic caused a minor edit war at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charlotte%27s_Web&diff=504553453&oldid=504551496 that other wiki] as a result.

Talk:1087: Cirith Ungol

2012-08-03T09:22:29Z

BJL:

Talk:1087: Cirith Ungol

2012-08-03T09:19:45Z

BJL: Created page with "I don't think this is correct: "Another possibility of the ambiguity is that the author, E. B. White, was saved from being slaughtered by Charlotte." The ambiguous sentence i..."