1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police

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Fashion Police and Grammar Police

Title text: * Mad about jorts

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Needs more added to the explanation. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In this comic, two groups of protesters are presented, with one group representing the "fashion police", and the other representing "grammar" police. They are both groups of people who make fun of others by saying or wearing something that doesn't meet their criteria of "good". Grammar police are people who are "sticklers" to grammar rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses grammar incorrectly in a sentence. Fashion police are people who make fun of others who wear clothing that is mismatched, out of style or straight-up "ugly" to them. The comic explains how the two groups are similar to each other.

Literally The comic concludes that these are literally the same people because they exhibit the listed same traits. The use of "literally" to emphasize a statement is considered by the grammar police as a dread crime that should be pointed out as such, although the dictionaries already include this definition as acceptable. On the other hand, fashion police is known for overusing "literally" in the way the grammar police finds disgusting.

Jorts A pair of shorts made from a pair of jeans. The fashion police would be mad about jorts for being unfashionable, while the grammar police would be mad about the word 'jorts' being an inappropriate portmanteau of jeans and shorts.

Transcript

[Two aggressive-looking groups of people. One holding signs with a X through a Crocs shoe and labelled "Fashion Police", and one holding signs with "Their, They're, There" written on them and labeled "Grammar Police".]
- Judgmental and Smug
- Angry about something deeply arbitrary
- Strong opinions backed by style guides
- Appreciate that the way that you're interpreted is your responsibility
- Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own
- To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well
- Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class
- Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you
I just realized that these are literally the same people

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Discussion

This sentence of the explanation is confusing: "Grammar police are people who are 'sticklers' to grammar rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses non-standard grammar in a sentence." What is meant by the grammar police getting 'contradictory' when non-standard grammar is used? 108.162.237.140 19:44, 20 September 2016 (UTC)->

I added a basic explanation to this comic. I also changed the incomplete to say "Needs more on the explanation". Maybe you guys can help connect the dots and extend the explanation? --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 14:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

It should be noted that he uses literally wrong, just to anger the grammar police he's mocking, it's a nice touch.Trives (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

What? He's using literally because it is literally "literally." He just listed 8 traits which both sides supposedly share. The joke/comment isn't that they are practically the same; it is that they are the identical same group of people.

In my eyes the 2 groups are not standing together in this comic. --DaB. (talk) 15:12, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I'd have said they were just being presented graphically, the intention isn't to display them as protesting alongside each other. Xseo (talk) 15:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there an extra joke in the Title Text, "* Mad about jorts"? If it's something which both Grammar Police and Fashion Police would find distasteful, it would add an extra layer to the assertion that they are the same people. 172.68.35.71 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Yes for sure and this is now in the explanation. --Kynde (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, I find it ironic and probably unintentional that the Title Text demonstrates the importance of grammar and undermines Randall's own assertions that Grammar Police are superfluous and annoying. Is he saying that he really likes jorts, or is he saying that he is really angered by them? If only there was some formal ruleset which allowed meaning to be more effectively conveyed, rather than being a system of glorious chaos... https://xkcd.com/1576/ 172.68.35.71 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think the comment above is inaccurate: "Title Text demonstrates the importance of grammar and undermines Randall's own assertions that Grammar Police are superfluous and annoying". The "*" represents a bullet point so it is clear that "* Mad about jorts" is an additional bullet point that both groups would find offensive. The irony now is that I'm not familiar with how to structure my wiki comments. ~~dizzydan~~ 108.162.221.103 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Yes very intentionally and thanks for pointing out it is an extra bullet point ;-) That is why the grammar police would hate that sentence where the other police just hate jorts. And would be mad if they realized it could be understood like they loved jorts. --Kynde (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Technically, the grammar police wouldn't care about jorts, since that is a spelling error, not a grammatical error. Please contact the spelling police.
Sincerely,

The Semantics Police 108.162.237.216 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Jorts is not a spelling error it is a real term used on Wikipedia and now linked in the explanation. They are mad about the use of "mad about". Because in this case it can be misunderstood as either really loving jorts or being upset about jorts. --Kynde (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Then it would be "* mad about 'mad about jorts'", thus I lean for the portmanteau explanation - Sebastian --162.158.86.167 03:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

When I first read it I just took it in the same context for both. I found it funnier to think that the "Grammar Police" are inexplicably mad at people wearing jean-shorts. Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 14:44, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Judgemental A spelling of the word 'judgmental,' infrequently used in the UK (which is widely regarded to be more fashionable than the US)?
Deeply Arbitrary Internally inconsistent? Arbitrary means based on random chance or whim and as such cannot be strong or deep?
Appreciate . . . are . . . is Subject/verb disagreement with a plural/singular shift?
Cool and casual vague use of an indefinite pronoun & a 'cool and casual' fashion choice is likely entails a significant amount of work, meaning it is not casual at all.--GotWilLeibniz (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary is more 'not based on physical phenomena', and is not necessarily based on chance. 172.68.35.80 06:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

'judgment' v. 'judgement' - I was taught that the first is used as in "using one's judgment," while the latter is "the court issued a judgement." Miamiclay (talk) 08:22, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

"Fashion Police and Grammar Police and ExplainXKCD Contributors" 108.162.219.69 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

True ;-) --Kynde (talk) 20:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Ah yes, of course. The implied "they" is grammatically third-person plural, the "you" is second-person singular (using the same rules as third-person plural for verb agreement), and the "way" is singular. Obviously, this means there is a subject/verb disagreement... somehow. ISaveXKCDpapers (talk) 01:58, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Just dropping a couple links here re: the "uncomfortably transparent proxies for race and class" in language. 162.158.214.227 21:20, 19 September 2016 (UTC) http://wordtree.com/what-the-victorians-did-to-english-grammar/ http://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2014/6/8/what-is-aave 162.158.214.227 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Por simpliĝi gramatikon, nur lernu Esperanton! Ĝi ne havas arbitrajn regularojn. 108.162.249.158 22:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

In reality, I support the grammar police. Language is a set of shared rules allowing us to understand each other. Speaking in improper grammar produces misunderstandings and throws off listeners/readers, as well as making the speaker sound incompetent. Imagine if people started piping garbage down TCP connections! Servers wouldn't understand a thing! 108.162.215.190 22:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Rich white people being in high places is not really the point. Classism is the easiest to demonstrate: the grammar police frown on non-prestige dialects, and the fashion police consider poor people's clothing to be unfashionable. Racism is harder to demonstrate simply, but with language you have AAVE being treated as just "bad English" and, to a lesser extent, fashion popular in certain races being considered bad. (See, the literal fashion police of some French towns in reaction to burkinis. Trlkly (talk) 03:24, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Hostility to burkini in France has nothing to do with fashion police. This is not a reaction to alleged bad taste in clothing (attemps to make them more fashionable are even well received), but to other things that the French are not comfortable with: public display of rigorist religious behaviour in a strongly secular country, perceived provocation by muslims in a context of islamist terror attacks, considerations around women's liberties (burkini seen as an enslavement to men/husbands)... Or for some it's simply knee-jerk racism... 141.101.98.14 11:57, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Isn't this an example of Duck Typing? 141.101.104.21 10:17, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Kudos to all who uses badder grammar for this explanations.Nerdman1 (talk) 12:39, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm all for using words in a way that makes them more performant, regardless of the rules, or whether or not they are in the dictionary. Psu256 (talk) 15:28, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Why hasn't anybody pointed out the most obvious fact?! They are called 'Grammar Nazis'!!!! 198.41.243.240 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I have thought about that, but since this term doesn't show up neither in the comic nor in the title text I discarded the idea again. On the other hand, I've never heard of the term "Grammar Police" while "Grammar Nazi" is quite common to me and in Google the term "grammar nazi" has about twice as many results as "grammar police" - despite explainXKCD Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 06:49, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Glamour and grammar ... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glamour 108.162.237.169 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"...and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own" ....what? i dont understand this part. what did randall mean to say?? 172.70.34.165 21:38, 15 September 2021 (UTC)Bumpf