Editing 2043: Boathouses and Houseboats

{{comic
| number    = 2043
| date      = September 7, 2018
| title     = Boathouses and Houseboats
| image     = boathouses_and_houseboats.png
| 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.
}}

==Explanation==
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.) But ''closed'' forms like "wallpaper" (paper for a wall) are not less common.

[[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).

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.)

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 removable. ''{{w|Bananaphone}}'', a song by Raffi Cavoukian, is also mentioned. 

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Real term
! Actual definition
! Randall's definition
! Inaccuracies in Randall's definition
! Randall's term
|-
| {{w|Tow truck}}
| 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).
| Carcar
|-
| {{w|Garage (residential)|Garage}}
| 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
|-
| {{w|Roll-on/roll-off|Car ferry}}
| A boat that carries cars, especially across a river
| A Boat that holds a Car
| Most car ferries hold more than one car at a time
| Carboat
|-
| {{w|Mobile home}}
| A home that can be moved by a truck
| A Car that holds a House
| The term "mobile home" refers to the home that is moved by a separate vehicle, not to the vehicle that moves it.  (If the home is self-propelled, then it is called a recreational vehicle.)
| Housecar
|-
| {{w|Apartment}}
| A home within a building that has been divided into separate living units
| A House that holds a House
| The "apartment" is the individual home within the larger building, which is called an apartment house or an apartment complex
| Househouse
|-
| {{w|Houseboat}}
| A boat that is used as a house
| A Boat that holds a House
| A houseboat has a home that is part of the boat; it is not a separate home carried on a boat.  However, a mobile home theoretically could be carried on a car ferry or a ship.
| Houseboat
|-
| {{w|Boat trailer}}
| A carrier that is towed behind a car or truck and holds a small boat
| A Car that holds a Boat
| The trailer is not the car; it is towed by the car.
| Boatcar
|-
| {{w|Boathouse}}
| 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
| Boathouse
|-
| {{w|Lifeboat (shipboard)|Lifeboat}}
| 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 a ship, not a boat.
| Boatboat
|}

==Transcript==
:[A chart with three rows and three columns is shown, both with the same heading "car", "house", and "boat". On the top left a text with the word "this" two times embedded in a bubble and an arrow respectively pointing to the row and column heading reads:]
:A '''this''' that holds '''this'''

:[Most entries have the common word in black, but crossed out in red with another word below also in red. Two entries remain in green.]
:A Car that holds a Car: <s>Tow truck</s> Carcar
:A House that holds a Car: <s>Garage</s> Carhouse
:A Boat that holds a Car: <s>Car ferry</s> Carboat
:A Car that holds a House: <s>Mobile home</s> Housecar
:A House that holds a House: <s>Apartment</s> Househouse
:A Boat that holds a House: Houseboat (green text)
:A Car that holds a Boat: <s>Boat trailer</s> Boatcar
:A House that holds a Boat: Boathouse (green text)
:A Boat that holds a Boat: <s>Lifeboat</s> Boatboat

:[Caption below the frame:]
:I really like the words for "boathouse" and "houseboat" and think we should apply that scheme more consistently.

==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].

{{comic discussion}}

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[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Language]]