Talk:1864: City Nicknames

Not sure how to edit, but Salinas, CA is nicknamed The Salad Bowl

I think "Castleopolis" is much more likely to be a reference to The Phantom Tollbooth (which I'm sure xkcd has referenced at least once before) than a *very* small town in Michigan. As I suggested in the table, The Phantom Tollbooth has castles and cities named Digitopolis and Dictionopolis, so this seems like the more likely reference to me. All open to interpretation of course! Erronius (talk) 23:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

For some reason I'm reminded of this comic. OldCorps (talk) 11:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"Urban Orb" may refer to Boston, aka "The Hub". 108.162.219.220 (talk) 12:17, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Los Vegas may be sin city, but I'm pretty sure that Las Vegas is quickly becoming Skin City Seebert (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

My only guess as to "The Walled Garden": In the video game series Mass Effect, the name of the homeworld of the Quarian species, Rannoch, translates to "walled garden". Not something I really associated with xkcd, admittedly. PvOberstein (talk) 13:19, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

A guess at "Hamtown" instead of Hamburg would be "Hogtown", a common nickname for Toronto, Canada -- Harebenj (talk) 13:27, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The Mobius Strip is also a district in the fictional Perplex City. I'm sure I've seen it used in some cyberpunk-ish novel as well, but can't identify it off the top of my head. - 141.101.98.76 13:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Well Folk might be a variation on Wee Folk. Thaledison (talk) 13:48, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I thought a similar thing, but about the Fair Folk. 17:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)An Inside Joke (talk)An Inside Joke

"Horse Rotary" could be referring to a traffic roundabout, which are called "rotaries" in some countries. Kbseah (talk) 14:02, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Some of these make me wonder if it might be easier to interpret if you connect adjacent ones. Seems to be easy to make the names of some real people/places/things by taking words from a pair of adjacent nicknames. For Example: The Urban Orb - City of Angles - The Big Wheel - Bird City USA - City of Seven Crowns - Hilltopia Could become: (...) - The Urban Angle - City of Wheels - Big Bird - Crown City - City of Seven Hills - (...) All of which seem to be Things That Exist™. Maybe I'm overthinking it :S - 141.101.98.76 14:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think you are overthinking this. If you just try and make random word associations you get interesting combinations. If New Orleans can be called the "Big Easy" and Chicago can be called "Chi (Shy) Town" then why not the "Big Shy" to the "Shy Easy", like Black Hat is just spouting out random words associated with city monikers (demonyms) you get a pretty humorous connection Rtanenbaum (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Game of Thrones is based on the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, not Land of Ice and Fire. Correction made in description. OldCorps (talk) 17:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

From my perspective from USA there is nothing more inherently funny than the names given to people in British cities. That someone from Liverpool is called a Liverpudlian makes me laugh every time I hear it. But then again the town I grew up is was referred to with the pejorative "Dreary Erie, the Mistake on the Lake" Rtanenbaum (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Be proud though, not many cities can claim to have set a river on fire. OldCorps (talk) 17:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed! Cleveland Rocks! Burn on, Cuyahoga, burn on. And a song to commemorate it [1] 108.162.219.88 18:08, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Random reader here... It may be familiarity bias since I'm from St. Louis, but this is the third (or fourth) comic to my memory that highlights St. Louis when it seems like any random city could have sufficed (I'm thinking of 1321: Cold, 1368: One Of The, and maybe 1243: Snare) and I don't recall any other city getting name-dropped so often (at least outside of major metropolises). Have I just not paid attention as much when other cities are mentioned, or is the repeated use of St. Louis something worth including as trivia on these three/four articles? 162.158.62.63 17:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Boston (New England) beat St. Louis in Super Bowl XXXVI and Randall just wants to keep rubbing it in maybe? OldCorps (talk) 17:42, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The Auditors ... wanted to simplify the universe by destroying it. Not so. They merely wanted to destroy humans and humanity, which are unnecessarily complicated from their point of view. To quote George Carlin: The planet is fine. The people are fucked.--172.68.154.70 18:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Space Moose - Rumpleshithead. NSFW, I guess, if you work somewhere stupid.  :-D 162.158.63.34 (talk) 19:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"The Kissing Kingdoms" Could be a reference to "The Kissing Kings," a common nickname for the two kings that are in the middle together in standard Bicycle new deck order. Dragonfiremalus (talk) 19:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"The Land of Trains and Fog" is obviously Britain (or some portion thereof), famous for fogs/rain, and where much of early railroading was developed. There is a quotation about this someplace, (I think Rowland Emett referenced it in one of his cartoons). I just haven't been able to dig up the source. 108.162.245.70 22:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The names in this kind of remind of towns names in Dwarf Fortress. Just randomly combined words. 108.162.246.23 (talk) 03:17, 18 July 2017 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"The City of Seven Crowns" also makes me think of the Seven Kingdoms (ASOIAF/GOT). Admittedly that may be because I watched the season 7 premiere last night. 108.162.245.166 (talk) 04:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Another reference for "The High City" as Denver could be the fact that Colorado has legalized marijuana, making it a place people go to get "high". 108.162.238.95 09:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Hilltopia is also probably a reference to Zootopia, which also has been referenced before by xkcd regarding wikipedia discussion pages. 141.101.104.11 (talk) 13:37, 18 July 2017 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Anyone else think this comic was made specifically to troll this site? --108.162.210.154 15:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Not only for this site, and it's not the first one... --Dgbrt (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Could "Bloomtown" also be a reference to the fact that many cities (especially in the Midwest) have "Bloom(something)" names. There are multiple towns called Bloomfield, Bloomington, etc... 108.162.237.232 16:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Thousand spires could also be a reference to Kredik Shaw from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. The name of the palace is literally supposed to translate as "Hill of a thousand spires". 173.245.50.150 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Bit off-topic, but is our bot working? A new comic is out now. ~AgentMuffin