Difference between revisions of "Talk:1652: Conditionals"

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The title text (you did it again - no I didn't) hearkens back to 725 Literally [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.58|108.162.216.58]] 21:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 
The title text (you did it again - no I didn't) hearkens back to 725 Literally [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.58|108.162.216.58]] 21:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  
So I read the caption as "WHEN I try not to be pedantic about conditionals" and was thinking that it was about "if/only if" directionality. ;-)
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So I read the caption as "WHEN I try not to be pedantic about conditionals" and was thinking that it was about "if/only if" directionality. ;-) {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.16}}

Revision as of 21:44, 7 March 2016

The title text... So he should both stop being pedantic in general and stop caring about conditionals in particular. What is it he does in the title text... the current explanation of that part is not clear to me. Is it completely clear who speaks which line in the title text...? --Kynde (talk) 15:03, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

It is fairly obvious that the line "If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner," is provided by Cueball's friend, as it is already established that Cueball was the one being pedantic about conditionals in the first place. 108.162.216.12 15:15, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

To me the word "Conditionals" is clearly in the grammatical sense. Computer programming was invented literally centuries after the grammatical meaning, and the joke would have been as meaningful 3000 years ago as it is today. 108.162.221.13 15:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The particular kind of conditional that Cueball's friend is using is called a "biscuit conditional," after the example "There are biscuits in the sideboard if you want some" (from the philosopher J.L. Austin). There's a bit of discussion of them at Language Log--Cueball is doing what Sam C talks about in the first comment, deliberately misunderstanding the conditional. The characteristic of these conditionals is that the truth of the consequent doesn't depend on the truth of the antecedent (the "if" clause), but the consequent isn't relevant if the antecedent isn't true--if Cueball didn't want to hang out, it wouldn't matter that his friend was in the city. In the title text, Cueball thinks that his friend is uttering another biscuit conditional, and that just saying that they should get dinner. But the truth of the consequent really is dependent on the truth of the antecedent--if Cueball isn't done being pedantic his friend doesn't want to get dinner. So I think it is accurate to say "The intent is to show that because the initiator still believes that Cueball is still being pedantic, then he believes that it is not a good idea to have dinner together," though maybe it could be expressed more clearly. 162.158.60.23 15:57, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Didn't Demitri Martin do this joke like 10 years ago? :P 108.162.221.63 18:11, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Whenever there is something like this that annoys me and I find out it has a name (like relevance conditional), it stops bothering me. HisHighestMinion (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The one that always bugs me is the Steven Universe intro song:

   We are the Crystal Gems
   We'll always save the day,
   and if you think we can't
   We'll always find a way.

Something about the "if" being at the beginning of the biscuit clause throws me. What if I think they can save the day? Then there's no guarantee that they will! But if I AM always thinking that they can't save the day, then they will ALWAYS find a way. Therefore I think they will always find a way. It's so circular!NotLock (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The title text (you did it again - no I didn't) hearkens back to 725 Literally 108.162.216.58 21:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

So I read the caption as "WHEN I try not to be pedantic about conditionals" and was thinking that it was about "if/only if" directionality. ;-) 173.245.54.16 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)