Editing 1602: Linguistics Club

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
−
A "{{Wiktionary|sesquiannual}}" meeting is one that occurs one and a half times every year; equivalently, 3 times every 2 years, or once every 8 months (this could be taken even more literally by having one meeting during each year, and another meeting which spans midnight every other New Year's Eve, thus having a one and a half meetings each year).
+
A "[[wiktionary:sesquiannual|sesquiannual]]" meeting is one that occurs one and a half times every year, or once every 8 months. It comes from the Latin root "[[wiktionary:sesqui|sesqui-]]", which means "half and...", and "[[wiktionary:annual|-annual]]", which is "...one per year". This is not to be confused with [[wiktionary:sesquiennial|sesquiennial]], which means every one and a half years, or 18 months.  A linguist or Latin scholar, the joke suggests, should be able to figure sesquiannual out as "half-and-one every year". This is an extension of the common confusion between "biannual," meaning "twice a year", and "biennial", meaning "once every two years".  Compare with the {{w|Sesquicentennial Exposition}} celebrating the first 1½ centuries of the United States.
  
−
The term comes from the Latin prefix "{{Wiktionary|sesqui-}}", which means "one and a half", and the root word "{{Wiktionary|annual}}", which equates to "…times per one year". The root word "annual" is commonly confused with the suffix "{{Wiktionary|-ennial}}", meaning "one time per x years." In particular, “sesquiannual” should not be confused with “{{Wiktionary|sesquiennial}}”, meaning "one time per one and a half years" or every one and a half years (18 months). Note that the Wiktionary entry on sesquiannual has both meanings listed – both 8 month and 18 months intervals. This is an extension of the common confusion between "biannual," meaning "twice a year", and "biennial", meaning "once every two years". Compare with the {{w|Sesquicentennial Exposition}} celebrating the first 1½ centuries of the United States, and "sesqui''bi''centennial", being 'half and two' hundred years, i.e. 250 (even though it should properly be sestercentennial, based on the Latin {{Wiktionary|sestertius}}, meaning "(two and) half of a third").
+
On the other hand [and the crux of the comic in general], 'sesqui' can be interpreted as a prefix meaning '1.5'. For example, the US sesquicentennial was celebrated on July 4, 1926 (after 150 years), so the confusion comes from people who think the meetings would be every 8 months (as above) or every 18 months (here). The confusion is related to the distinction between 'biweekly' (which paradoxically means either twice per week or once every two weeks) and 'semiweekly' (once every half-week, i.e., twice a week), and bimonthly (twice a month or every two months). 'Biannual' and 'biennial' only furthers this confusion (as in this case, 'biannual' and 'semiannual' are synonymous when the prefixes usually are not).
−
 
 
−
The joke suggests that only a competent linguist could understand the word “sesquiannual”. One reason for this is that the prefix “sesqui-” is rare, so those who know its meaning are likely to be linguists. Another is that a competent linguist should be able to distinguish between “sesquiannual” and “sesquiennial”.
 
−
 
 
−
If you understand this then you can join the '''Linguistics Club'''. While most organizations attempt to ensure that the schedule of their meetings are clear to participants so that everyone will attend, the club in the comic deliberately instills an ambiguity for those outside their target demographic. Their membership will thus swell with the desired cognoscenti who remain unconfused, and maybe also a few lucky guessers.
 
−
 
 
−
Once the applicant correctly understands the frequency of meetings, presumably they are told at least one meeting date in the cycle so that an attendance can be made.  
 
  
 
Regarding the title text, a {{w|tautology (rhetoric)|tautology}} is a statement that is true (or self-evident) because of its logical form, such as "all birds are birds" or "A = A." As such, the statement "the Tautology Club meets on the date of the Tautology Club's meeting" is itself tautological.
 
Regarding the title text, a {{w|tautology (rhetoric)|tautology}} is a statement that is true (or self-evident) because of its logical form, such as "all birds are birds" or "A = A." As such, the statement "the Tautology Club meets on the date of the Tautology Club's meeting" is itself tautological.
  
−
While the membership requirement for the Linguistics Club is merely to know the intended frequency, the Tautology Club's stipulation appears to require an eligible member to derive a valid meeting date from thin air without any clue at all (and no indication that there is even a regular cycle of any kind). This would definitely be more of a challenge.
+
While the membership requirement for the original club is merely to know the intended frequency (presumably then a successful applicant to be told at least one meeting date in the cycle so that an attendance can be made; or perhaps the member is supposed to guess that by reasoning that every third meeting must extend across the beginning of a new year), Tautology Club's stipulation appears to require an eligible member to derive a valid meeting date from thin air without any clue at all (and no indication that there is even a regular cycle of any kind). This would definitely be more of a challenge.
  
−
The title text has a connection to [[703: Honor Societies]] in which Cueball creates a Tautology Club where tautologies are used in practically every spoken sentence.
+
The title text has a connection to [[703: Honor Societies]] in which Cueball announces that "the first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club."
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
−
:[Megan talks to Ponytail.]
+
Megan: You should come to our Linguistic Club's sesquiannual meeting. Membership is open to anyone who can figure out how often we meet.  
−
:Megan: You should come to our Linguistics Club's sesquiannual meeting.
 
−
:Megan: Membership is open to anyone who can figure out how often we meet.
 
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 +
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
 
[[Category:Language]]
 
[[Category:Language]]

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)

Templates used on this page:

Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1602:_Linguistics_Club"