2337: Asterisk Corrections - Revision history

2601:19E:8200:15A0:445F:34AF:3FB1:889B: Add potential interpretation of "witchcraft"

2025-09-02T19:20:50Z

Add potential interpretation of "witchcraft"

172.69.43.165 at 13:14, 7 May 2024

2024-05-07T13:14:51Z

172.69.194.41: /* Explanation */ "a way ... none exists" was a valid gammatical agreement of terms. If changed to "... none exist" it must therefore now be rewritten to match, e.g. "ways ..."

2024-03-11T13:46:17Z

‎Explanation: "a way ... none exists" was a valid gammatical agreement of terms. If changed to "... none exist" it must therefore now be rewritten to match, e.g. "ways ..."

1234231587678 at 06:13, 11 March 2024

2024-03-11T06:13:54Z

Tromag at 22:46, 2 January 2024

2024-01-02T22:46:22Z

172.68.253.130: /* Explanation */ added

2023-10-09T18:10:33Z

‎Explanation: added

162.158.34.71: Undo revision 295708 by 172.69.33.33 (talk) Erm... {{Actual citation needed}} !!!

2022-09-30T18:02:04Z

Undo revision 295708 by 172.69.33.33 (talk) Erm... {{Actual citation needed}} !!!

172.69.33.33: Added in the origins of the use of the asterisk.

2022-09-30T14:19:42Z

Added in the origins of the use of the asterisk.

Theusaf: Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

2022-05-26T20:01:06Z

Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

2022-05-26T18:56:48Z

Reverted edit by anti-crap user

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@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 :"I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty."
 : *witchcraft
-The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find ways to make it work, even though none exist.
+The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find ways to make it work. (One potential resolution is to interpret "witchcraft week" as a weeklong celebration.)
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 * '''Pizza''': object
-"Couch" and "pizza" are both nouns so they could theoretically be subjects, but asterisk corrections must ''replace'' an existing part of the sentence satisfactorily, so the "'m" part of the verb prevents these third-person nouns from being parsed as the subject. Theoretically one could also swap "couch" and "pizza" around, giving "eat a couch on the pizza", but this makes much less practical sense than "eat a pizza on the couch". That said, in xkcd's fictional universe there is nothing to stop the character from eating a couch on a pizza.
+"Couch" and "pizza" are both nouns so they could theoretically be subjects, but asterisk corrections must ''replace'' an existing part of the sentence satisfactorily, so the "'m" part of the verb prevents these third-person nouns from being parsed as the subject. Theoretically one could also swap "couch" and "pizza" around, giving "eat a couch on the pizza", but this makes much less practical sense than "eat a pizza on the couch". That said, in xkcd's fictional universe there is nothing to stop the character from eating a couch on a pizza. Perhaps Beret Guy is the one texting.
 In the title text, Randall says that he likes to make it as difficult as possible for his text recipient to guess where his correction should be, and uses the following sentence and correction:

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 :"I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty."
 : *witchcraft
-The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find a way to make it work, even though none exist.
+The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find ways to make it work, even though none exist.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 :"I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty."
 : *witchcraft
-The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find a way to make it work, even though none exists.
+The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find a way to make it work, even though none exist.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-In text messages, asterisks are commonly used to denote a correction of some error in an earlier text. Asterisk corrections typically specify the corrected words, but do not explicitly mark the words that should be replaced. The words that should be replaced are simply the words in the message that make sense to be replaced by the correction, often the ones that are the closest by spelling or meaning to the correction.
+In text messaging etiquette, asterisks are commonly used to denote a correction of some error in an earlier text. Asterisk corrections typically specify the corrected words, but do not explicitly mark the words that should be replaced, the reader is expected to understand which word is being corrected. Typically, this is due to a typo or autocorrect issue, so the corrected word will be similar to the original, but this comic plays with the fact that the words can be completely different, and most people will still understand it.
-In this comic, the messenger ([[Randall]]) corrects four such inaccuracies. The message, if the corrections were to be taken in order, might read "I'm gonna eat 3 AM on the couch at pizza." The typical reader should be sharp enough to know that it should read "I'm gonna eat a pizza on the couch at 3 AM.", replacing the ones that are closest by function in the sentence. Randall finds this remarkable.
+In the strip, the messenger ([[Randall]]) issues four corrections, which replace words with completely different words, and entirely change the meaning of the message. The original message is "I'm gonna ride a horse on the beach at dawn", suggesting a life of adventure and romanticism. The corrected version comes out "I'm gonna eat a pizza on the couch at 3 am", suggesting that his plans are unimpressive, and may indicate a slothful and unhealthy existence.
-Taken one at a time, it appears the reader would have the following sentences in their head:
+Randall finds it remarkable that these corrections can be issued, with no indication of which words they're replacing (and aren't even issued in the proper sequence), and most people have very little difficulty figuring out the corrected message. This is likely possible because the syntax of most English sentences are as follows:
 :''Subject — Verb — Object — Manner — Place — Time''
 Other languages have different {{w|word order|word orders}} but generally have the same six categories.
@@ Line 38: / Line 32: @@
 :"I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next week is looking pretty empty."
 : *witchcraft
-The trick here is trying to figure out which word(s) should be replaced by "witchcraft". Broadly speaking, "witchcraft" could serve as an activity, but no words for activities exist in the original sentence, leaving the reader to guess at the intent. Possible solutions suggested in the comments are:
+The trick here is that the word "witchcraft" doesn't fit into the sentence in any obvious way, and attempting to fit it in results in a sentence which is either very odd or grammatically meaningless. This creates a bit of mental tension, as many people's minds will try to find a way to make it work, even though none exists.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 : "I'd love to meet up, maybe in a few days? Next '''witchcraft''' is looking pretty empty."
-Of course, none of these solutions would be evident as correct to the recipient of the message, until Randall sends further corrections.
+Of course, none of these solutions would be evident as correct to the recipient of the message, until Randall sends further corrections, or unless the recipient has some further context.
 One absurdity in the main comic panel is that, after all four corrections has been parsed, the meaning of the resulting sentence has no connection with the original sentence whatsoever. However, asterisk corrections are generally used to correct typing mistakes, not to completely change the meaning of the original message. This raises suspicion as to why the messenger wrote the original sentence in the first place. Perhaps Randall does want to make the comic as difficult for his readers to parse as possible while making the point that asterisk corrections are usually quite intuitive to understand.