Talk:2814: Perseids Pronunciation

I'm afraid to google the Kentucky Meat Shower. 162.158.158.139 14:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

SPOILER ALERT

I can give you a very quick summary: when startled, vultures will sometimes regurgitate their last meal, both to lighten themselves for a quick escape, and make a potential predator lose its appetite. Apparently, something startled a bunch of vultures at the same time, and nobody knows exactly what. 172.69.247.42 14:55, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower Shamino (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

"can" is repeated in the title text. 141.101.68.54 14:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

On August 11, 2023, XKCD was not the only web comic to reference the "Kentucky Meat Shower". It is the full subject of the day's Dinosaur Comics, at http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4085. And August 11 is not even an anniversary of the event (March 3, 1876). Coincidence? Time travel? You be the judge. JohnB (talk) 15:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

This tells me neither how acceptable things like my default lazy pronunciation, nor the original ancient greek pronunciation of its namesake, are considered. How am I supposed to guess where combinations of variations like PEER-, -seh-, and -ides would affect placement in the list? 172.71.142.35 19:12, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

It's not wrong, per-se. (ed.) ProphetZarquon (talk) 21:40, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

That's exactly how I pronounce it. (per se) + ids. per-say-ids. 172.68.4.168 10:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

ed ≠ id, though.

ProphetZarquon (talk) 17:07, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

• PER-see-ids: standard(ish, YMMV) 3-syllable verson of the word.
• PURSE-yids: standardish 2-(/2.5-)syllable version.
• Per-SEE-ids: yeah, I'd accept that emphisis, in a pinch.
• Per-SAY-ids: ok, so you like that version of the 'ei' digraph; might even be 'classical'.
• Per-SIDES: Germanic digraph and irregular (in this case) phomeme boundries, but each to their own.
• Per-ZAY-uds: I can see most of this, accent permitting; the '<schwa>ds' is a surprising twist.
• PER-suds: you dont care about the digraph at all, do you?
• Perky-ids: Back-formed through "C/S equivalence", I'm guessing, but from the wrong s(e)ide?
• Pewpewpews: Onomatopœia!!!
• Per-say-say: Bowdlerised, as if the original is a 'naughty' word.
• Percies: Shortened through familiarity.
• Purps: Shortened/perhaps linked to "perp(etrator)s".
• Pepsids: Sponsorship! (Did we also get the "Dracokids", 6-10 Oct?)
• Peeps: Anthopomorphised, the lot of 'em!

...my first thoughts, but I'm sure there are competing claims so I'll leave this down here for the time being. 162.158.74.47 23:28, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Per-ZAY-uds seems like it could be acceptable in New Zealand. 172.71.178.35 08:40, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

The list in the Explanation's table was missing most of them, and the Transcript separated the two-word entries into separate entries! Fixed all that. Filled in my analyses of the missing pronunciations, I'm sure others can flesh them out better, add relevant links as I couldn't be bothered to both think of things to link and figure out the best way to link them (and make the multi-entry rows look proper). Also, someone severely misunderstood what "Peeps" would mean, it seems clearly to be the slang for "people". The goofy entries seemed to require separate descriptions, so I left them as separate rows as the cleanest/clearest layout I can think of for that, with the rudimentary understanding of Wiki tables I could glean from what was already there. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm convinced it's "Percies" and "Purps" and "Pepsids" and "Peeps", at the end, not "Percies Purps" and "Pepsids Peeps". Just arrayed in two columns as they're shortened enough to make it an unasethetic layout to extend by two rows and add so much gap at the end of four lines. "Pewpewpews" aside, none of the others more than double the "p"s from the original single one. It can be forgiven to bookend a short phoneme (Purps, Peeps), but sounds off to revisit the pattern (twice!) in this manner, with no clear connection between paired elements. Just my own observation, though. 162.158.74.46 20:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I know! Look at the size of the spacing between the left and right elements - those aren't two-word terms, no way.

I can see how an at-a-glance read might come up with "Pepsids Peeps" and "Percies Perps"...but at-a-glance reading seems a little out of place on an analytical forum!

Those are four seperate names.Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 07:35, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know why SO many of you are making this mistake! No, last 2 lines are unquestionably 2 entries, sorry. It's weird Randall put so much space, it's unfortunate the spaces line up to be easily mistaken for columns, but they're only 2. Randall can make the comic longer to fit more lines if he wanted them to be separate entries. Sorry, there is no room for debate here. Normally I wouldn't make such changes/decisions so unilaterally, but this is so beyond question that I know there's no room for error, it's safe to proceed. How can I say this so certainly with such conviction? Easy. None of the 4 words can alone reasonably replace "Perseids". They work as a team. "Percies" and "Pepsids" replaces "Perse-", "Purps" and "Peeps" replaces "-ids". "Percies" is even spelled SO similarly to "Perse-", enough that we would pronounce them the same, except for the S on "Percies"! How do you imagine the 1-syllable "Purps" and "Peeps" replaces the 3-syllable "Perseids"? Notice how "Percies" and "Pepsids" are 2 syllables each, meaning that as two teams, they're each 3-syllables replacing 3-syllables! Actually, this is true of the whole Definitely Wrong group, all are 3-syllables. IDK, maybe I'm just more used to people who mangle words, but it makes a certain sense, actually. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:25, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

"Sorry, there is no room for debate here." - That's the main error you make. (I repeat the "too many 'P's" as a direct counter to "too few syllables", for example. It's at least as significant an argument, based upon preceding ’words' in the list.)

Might have been more fortunate if it had been something like...

Fulllengthitem
Longitem	Item
Item	Longitem

...but it wasn't, for whatever reason. Maybe for the same aesthetic reason as made it preferable to not run "long long" and "short short" (aligned) or each to their own line with loads of trailing deadspace. So, instead, what trouble we now have? Obscured by the ambiguity... (Unintentional ambiguity? Or possibly even done with full consciousness of how readers might be nerdsniped. Wouldn't put that past him, either.) 141.101.99.79 08:10, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

By "no room for debate here", I meant there's no potential for you guys to be right, sorry. There is no question, there is no chance. I mean, I could see "Percies" and "Pepsids" acting alone, being extra casual by dropping syllables (like calling "Perceus" "Percies" for short), but that leaves "Purps" and "Peeps" as orphans, there is simply not enough to them to pretend they could replace "Perseids"). The "too many Ps" is alliteration, because people enjoy when two or more words in a row start with the same letter, especially anyone immature/casual enough to say these instead of the real word. And the extra Ps makes the wrong versions extra wrong. Not putting dashes, putting separate words, enhances the alliteration. Just try saying "Perseids" properly and "Percies Purps" back-to-back, back and forth. Especially quickly. Same with "Pepsids Peeps". Other than adding the alliterative extra Ps, they DO sound very similar. "It wasn't, for some reason", I GAVE you the reason, because there ARE no short items! NO two entries share a line! Each entry is its own line! There is no ambiguity! The thing is, both sets of words are the same length, so it LOOKS like columns. He probably extra went with it because it looks visually appealing, that might be why there's so much space, to give him the room to make them line up while making sure there's enough space to properly separate the words, he over-compensated. And notice how the columns concept falls apart in that the higher entries extend far enough right to be OVER the potential second column. If this comic were done in text form, you'd have to fudge the columns, ALL the higher entries would have to be coded to take two columns, to allow the bottom entries to have two columns. Frankly, 3-syllables for 3-syllables is where the argument falls apart the most. They are two entries, not 4, sorry. This isn't the first time it has seemed like me and Randall seem to align in our thoughts, I always just get what he means, often in cases where some people here are not sure. This is one of them. I just wish someone else who sees the truth would speak up, because it seems like there are too many confused people here. Though 172.68.150.46 below makes a good point, I haven't heard of this "Pepsi x Peeps", but assuming it does actually exist, the timing and two letter difference makes this connection fairly guaranteed, and also supports what I'm saying about "Pepsids Peeps" being one entry. :) (Which indirectly supports "Percies Purps" being one, as then it would make no sense to have one line being 2 entries and the other being 1). NiceGuy1 (talk) 18:48, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Two reasons for why it's 4 words:

1) Randall hyphenates every word combination above, but he didn't hyphenate PERCIES-PURPS nor PEPSIDS-PEEPS.

2) Phonetically, Perseids starts with an "er" sound and ends with an "ee" sound. Either can get dropped, but their order is not reversed: it would sound too dissimilar to "Perseids". "Percies" and "Pepsids" follow this rule, "Percies-Purps" and "Pepsids-Peeps" do not.

162.158.95.157 07:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

He didn't hyphenate because he's adding alliteration, anyone who would be THIS silly and casual would enjoy the two words starting with a P, and the alliteration is enhanced by two SEPARATE words, no hyphens. Also, the hyphens are only even there because that's how you separate pronunciation syllables, those last TWO aren't even trying to be a pronunciation guide any more, just replacements. Notice, "Percies" should be "per-CEES", "Pepsids" as "pep-SIDS" if they were still being pronunciation guides, but they aren't. Your 2) falls apart by itself, "Perse-" is what phonetically starts with "er" and ends with "ee", as does "Percies", leaving "Purps" to replace "-ids" (which always rhymes with pluralizing "did", every time I hear it), so, no, "Perceids" does NOT end in an "ee" sound. Which means you made an argument for my side there, :) If you ignore the alliteration as its own thing, "urps" replaces "-ids", it's the S that phonetically lines up, plus the P sound sounding similar to the D sound. Admittedly, the "er" and "ids" start and end match between "Pepsids" and "Perseids", but it doesn't match due to the mismatched syllables. (I've been involved in a lot of karaoke song parodies, writing and seeing others write silly replacement lyrics, maybe THAT'S how I have a strong instinct for this. When getting silly, parodying, matching syllables is important to maintain the connection). Like I said above, try saying "Perseids" back-to-back with each two word pair, back and forth, quickly, you should see how they line up. NiceGuy1 (talk) 18:48, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the "Pepsids Peeps" is a reference to the Pepsi x Peeps soda that got released a few months ago—the first word could be a cross between PEPSI and perseiDS. Presumably, they are very sugary meteors. 172.68.150.46 12:00, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Is someone familiar with the phonetic notation system used in the comic able to convert it to something more generally acceptable like IPA? Tharkon (talk) 17:14, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

It's "informal", and seems to be similar to the wikipedia one. 198.41.238.54 01:50, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

No "per-seed"? I once heard a newscaster say it that way. SDSpivey (talk) 18:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I heard a BBC newsreader say "PER-sid" yesterday. As though it were a compound of "perse" and "id".Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 07:41, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Why not "per-sayds"? 198.41.238.54 01:50, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I always rhymed it with “Mercedes” for some reason. 172.69.71.43 11:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It seems likely to me this is going to be regional. I was always taught "Per-SAY-ids" to be correct (EN-GB). I've never heard anyone say "PER-see-ids" or "PURSE-yids". 172.70.85.218 09:58, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I've been saying pur-see-IDES (where instead of ids, i say ides, like the Ides of March) 172.71.222.253 19:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Pepsident Media Shower 172.70.91.79 08:43, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Laser Guns

I removed possibly for the resemblance of the flashes of light both laser guns and meteors make in the sky. In real life, neither lasers nor meteors make much sound at all. from the explanation for pewpewpews because it doesn't make sense. If meteors made a pewpewpew sound, then laser guns might be sounded like them for their resemblance; but since they don't make that sound, if laserd were SFXed for that resemblance, they'd be silent. There's no logic in bringing up meteors at all. I believe "pew" could describe a bullet whistling by. 162.158.86.183 07:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

We climbed to the top of a hill where there was a small radio tower in the hopes that the wind would make some interesting sounds in the tower or the support cables.  I picked up a rock and banged on the cable just for fun and Ben said,  "That sounds like the imaginary laser gun ought to sound!" 

So he recorded the sounds there and later in California he looked around for other towers and finally found one that he especially liked in the Mohave desert in California. There was a broken brace hanging on the cable that added a special quality to the sound and that was the one he used in combination with some other sounds to create the sound of the laser gun.

Source: https://filmsound.org/starwars/lasergunstory.htm 162.158.94.218 07:55, 20 August 2023 (UTC)