2043: Boathouses and Houseboats - Revision history

81.179.199.253: /* Explanation */ Around here, "Car Barn" has been the closest term to that. Most prominently, for tramsheds, rather than locosheds, but it's still a valid counterexample. I'll leave "common", though, as perhaps it is that.

2026-05-03T23:24:39Z

‎Explanation: Around here, "Car Barn" has been the closest term to that. Most prominently, for tramsheds, rather than locosheds, but it's still a valid counterexample. I'll leave "common", though, as perhaps it is that.

Take The A Train To Watertown: trains go in a carhouse

2026-05-03T22:58:03Z

trains go in a carhouse

172.70.58.45: /* Trivia */ URL typo...

2025-03-08T01:05:16Z

‎Trivia: URL typo...

FaviFake: /* Trivia */

2025-03-07T18:09:57Z

‎Trivia

172.70.90.8: Undo revision 367777 by 162.158.193.10 (talk) Trolling?

2025-03-04T07:41:28Z

Undo revision 367777 by 162.158.193.10 (talk) Trolling?

162.158.193.10 at 01:07, 4 March 2025

2025-03-04T01:07:39Z

TheusafBOT: Reverted edit 364563 by 172.68.211.99 to 364299

2025-02-05T07:22:04Z

Reverted edit 364563 by 172.68.211.99 to 364299

172.68.211.99: Crapized the page.

2025-02-05T07:21:38Z

Crapized the page.

172.70.80.12: (Minor edit) - remove German focus from first paragraph

2025-02-03T02:59:24Z

(Minor edit) - remove German focus from first paragraph

162.158.108.123: /* Explanation */

2025-01-22T08:32:23Z

‎Explanation

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 | A building for storing or repairing vehicles
 | A House that holds a Car
-| “Carhouse” actually does have Randall’s definition, but is far less popular than “garage.”  It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary (using the spelling “car house”) and is used in To Kill a Mockingbird. Carhouse is also the common term for a railcar storage and maintenance facility.
+| “Carhouse” actually does have Randall’s definition, but is far less popular than “garage.”  It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary (using the spelling “car house”) and is used in To Kill a Mockingbird. Carhouse is also a common term for a railcar storage and maintenance facility.
 | Carhouse
 |-

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 | A building for storing or repairing vehicles
 | A House that holds a Car
-| “Carhouse” actually does have Randall’s definition, but is far less popular than “garage.”  It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary (using the spelling “car house”) and is used in To Kill a Mockingbird.
+| “Carhouse” actually does have Randall’s definition, but is far less popular than “garage.”  It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary (using the spelling “car house”) and is used in To Kill a Mockingbird. Carhouse is also the common term for a railcar storage and maintenance facility.
 | Carhouse
 |-

@@ Line 98: / Line 98: @@
 ==Trivia==
-The [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.pngo original version of the comic] used a different wording to indicate which word held the other. The column word holds the row.
+The [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.png original version of the comic] used a different wording to indicate which word held the other. The column word holds the row.
 {{comic discussion}}

@@ Line 98: / Line 98: @@
 ==Trivia==
-The first version of the comic image used a different wording to indicate which word held the other. The column word holds the row. The original wording can be seen [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.png here].
+The [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/3/38/20180907164439%21boathouses_and_houseboats.pngo original version of the comic] used a different wording to indicate which word held the other. The column word holds the row.
 {{comic discussion}}

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−	~~[[Category:Synonym Movies]]~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:07, 4 March 2025
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	[[Category:Comics edited after their publication]]		[[Category:Comics edited after their publication]]
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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{comic
-| number    = Crap
+| number    = 2043
-| date      = Crap Crap, Crap
+| date      = September 7, 2018
-| title     = Crap
+| title     = Boathouses and Houseboats
-| image     = crap.png
+| image     = boathouses_and_houseboats.png
-| titletext = Crap
+| 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.
 }}
-==Crap==
+==Explanation==
-Crap
+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 of a piano) or "player piano" (a piano {{w|Player piano|capable of unattended operation}}). But ''closed'' forms like "wallpaper" (paper for a wall) are not less common. Some other languages have many more compound words: The German word for "hospital" literally means "patient's house," and the Swedish word for "house trailer" literally means "house car".
-==Crap==
+[[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).
-==Crap==
+Additionally, he is somewhat inconsistent in some parts of the chart. While the chart is supposed to show examples of neologistic compound words <x><y> that refer to a <y> that ''holds'' an <x>, rather than a <y> ''in'' an <x>. However, Randall's examples sometimes are those of the latter example. 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. "Apartment" is a similar case: an apartment is a house in a house, while a house that holds a house is an apartment building or apartment complex. (However, in the title text, Randall points out an <x><y> could also refer to a <y> in an <x>, similar to the lifeboat and apartment examples. Nevertheless, "lifeboat" and "apartment" do not fit with the rest of the items of the chart and disobey the rule annotated in the corner.)
-{{crap}}
+In the title text: "Truck food" is in some areas a common term for the meals offered by "{{w|Food truck|food trucks}}." {{w|Car phone}}s were a feature in automobiles throughout the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, serving as the predecessors to mobile phones, although they were permanently installed into a car and not mobile. ''{{w|Bananaphone}}'', a song by Raffi Cavoukian, is also mentioned.
-[[Category:Crap]]
+{| class="wikitable"
-[[Category:Crap]]
+|-
-[[Category:Crap]]
+! Real term
-[[Category:Crap]]
+! Actual definition
-[[Category:Crap]]
+! Randall's definition
-[[Category:Crap]]
+! Inaccuracies in Randall's definition

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 | A truck that pulls or carries cars
 | A Car that holds a Car
-| Definitions are flexible. Tow trucks and cars are both automobiles, but "car" usually means an automobile dedicated to passengers, while "truck" is intended for hauling cargo (in the tow truck's case, other automobiles).
+| Definitions are flexible. Tow trucks and cars are both automobiles, but "car" usually means an automobile dedicated to passengers, while "truck" is intended for hauling cargo (in the tow truck's case, other automobiles). We must also distinguish whether "tow truck" simply refers to a truck (pickup or full-size) that is designed to only move one car (on a flatbed trailer or hooked up behind with a winch, letting either the front or rear wheels roll along the ground), or a semi-trailer equipped with a frame that permits the transport of several cars at once (a car carrier).
 | Carcar
 |-
@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 | A building for storing a boat
 | A House that holds a Boat
-| The word "house" typically refers to a residential building, but can refer to other buildings
+| The word "house" typically refers to a residential building, but can refer to other buildings. The term more specifically refers to an enclosed, roofed dock where boats may be stored, protected from damage by the weather & other outdoor dangers.
 | Boathouse
 |-
@@ Line 75: / Line 75: @@
 | A small boat carried on a ship, meant to be used to evacuate the larger ship, especially if it starts to sink or catches fire
 | A Boat that holds a Boat
-| This breaks Randall's definition: the lifeboat is not the "boatboat" because the lifeboat is the one being carried. And, in technical terms, the larger vessel is usually not a boat, but rather a ship.
+| By traditional nautical definition, a ship is a vessel capable of carrying a boat. Many civilian boats can carry simple watercraft such as inflatable rafts, canoes, kayaks or dinghies.
 | Boatboat
 |}