2043: Boathouses and Houseboats

2018-09-07T22:49:05Z

PDV:

{{comic
| number = 2043
| date = September 7, 2018
| title = Boathouses and Houseboats
| image = boathouses_and_houseboats.png
| titletext = The <x> that is held by <y> is also a <y><x>, so if you go to a food truck, the stuff you buy is truck food. A phone that's in your car is a carphone, and a car equipped with a phone is a phonecar. When you play a mobile racing game, you're in your phonecar using your carphone to drive a different phonecar. I'm still not sure about bananaphones.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|BOTBOT or BOATBOAT is funny, but please also mention here the reason why this isn't complete - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Most English {{w|English compound|compound nouns}} can be constructed recursively. In many cases they are written ''open'' or ''spaced'' like "piano player" (a player using a piano.) But ''closed'' forms like "wallpaper" (a paper on a wall) are not less common.

[[Randall]] is engaging in creative linguistics again. This time he is humorously suggesting to use a consistent naming scheme for things holding other things, the same way we call a boat holding a house a houseboat. He is extending this to all combinations boats, houses and cars. This would, however, be somewhat impractical, as these names do not include why one thing is on an other, and are also sometimes ambiguous: a carcar can be a tow truck as much as a car carrier, and a househouse can be either an apartment (house in a house) or an apartment building (house containing houses).

Additionally, he is somewhat inconsistent with this himself. He proposes to call lifeboats, which are boats held by other boats, "boatboat", instead of using that to refer to boats holding other boats, such as floating drydocks. Additionally, it is established naval practice to refer to a boat which is carried by another vessel as a "ship's boat", and call any vessel that carries a boat a "ship". In other words, according to usual naval terminology, a "boatboat" is a contradiction in terms; it is either a "boatship", synonymous with ship and hence redundant, or a "shipboat", the ship's boat.

==Transcript==
:[A chart with three rows and three columns is shown, both with the same heading "car", "house", and "boat". On the top left a text with the word "this" two times embedded in a bubble and an arrow respectively pointing to the row and column heading reads:]
:A '''this''' that holds '''this'''

:[Most entries have the common word in black, but crossed out in red with another word below also in red. Two entries remain in green.]
:A Car that holds a Car: <s>Tow truck</s> Carcar
:A House that holds a Car: <s>Garage</s> Carhouse
:A Boat that holds a Car: <s>Car ferry</s> Carboat
:A Car that holds a House: <s>Mobile home</s> Housecar
:A House that holds a House: <s>Apartment</s> Househouse
:A Boat that holds a House: Houseboat (green text)
:A Car that holds a Boat: <s>Boat trailer</s> Boatcar
:A House that holds a Boat: Boathouse (green text)
:A Boat that holds a Boat: <s>Lifeboat</s> Boatboat

:[Caption below the frame:]
:I really like the words for "boathouse" and "houseboat" and think we should apply that scheme more consistently.

==Trivia==
The first version of the comic image mixed up the order of what holds what. The second word holds the first but at the original the opposite was told as it can be seen [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.png here].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Language]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2043: Boathouses and Houseboats