Talk:450: The Sea

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Umm...before changing the page shouldn't there be some discussion here? There was a bunch of other stuff that got deleted. 69.122.106.29 03:22, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Justification of "male enhancement" theory

DGBert wrote that there's no justification for the idea of the first pump being a penis-enlarging pump. What other theory do you have about (a) a pump, that (b) makes someone larger and (c) improves their self-image?

If you have any hints not only coming from your own brain you are welcome. This wiki is "Explain" and not "Speculate". --Dgbrt (talk) 17:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

(Do we have Word Of God about this or many other 'Explanations'? An awful lot of this Wiki is speculation, without it.) Personally, while the first pump could be either kind of pump, the title text asking for another in order to drain the sea means that the first (regardless of which way one's mind snaps, on reading) was not intended to be a sea-draining pump. Randall also often does something akin to "one-lead-element Markov Chaining", and "how small I am" leading to a penis pump fits his sense of absurdist humour. Even if it isn't initially that, it's still akin to being a Garden path sentence (only more of a disfluent paragraph version) when parsing. All IMO. YMMV. HTH. HAND. 178.107.249.215 13:40, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree with "male enhancement" explanation

The previous explanation (last edited by Dgbrt) was:

In this comic, Cueball compares himself to a very large sea and realizes how small he is. The initial implication is that this causes him to be humble and realize his small place on the planet -- a common sentiment expressed in poetry and blogs.

The punchline "I should get one of those pumps" induces humor by reversing the expectation: as he thinks about how small he is compared to the sea, he starts wanting to buy a pump, presumably take out the sea water so the sea could be smaller and not so much a threat to his self-image anymore. It shows that he really hasn't learned anything and is still egotistical.

The title text creates additional humor by reversing the expectation yet again, by saying that he wanted another pump to drain the sea, meaning that the purpose of the first pump was not to drain the sea. This leads the reader to ponder what possible use the first pump was to have, and how it was going to make him bigger.

This, to me, felt weak, was overly complex, and ignored what seems a painfully obvious point. The number of "male enhancement" products being marketed by junk-mail at the time was a frequent source of humour, and something that anyone with an e-mail account (and a poor junk-mail filter) dealt with on a frequent basis. Ref: Trends on Male Enhancement

Note, the line is: "... one of those pumps." This wording indicates that Randall is referring to something that he expects the reader to realize is topical. If he meant a generic pump, he would NOT have used the keyword "those". People ignorant of the junk mail of the day, and the function of penis pumps, would understandably not get the joke. MisterSpike (talk) 10:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree with previous explanation. Undee (talk) 12:01, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
A question for Dgbrt

Did you that in English the sentences I'm small and I'm big sometimes mean my penis is small[1] and my penis is big?[2][3] 173.245.50.84 13:44, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I seriously take issue with that statement as well - I suggest using "can also mean" rather than "mean" or "sometimes mean" Brettpeirce (talk) 13:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
A question to me (Dgbrt)

This explain should be discussed with Randall. This comic doesn't belong to SEX, most man don't use a "Penis Pump" because it's nonsense. If Randall did joke about this item we would get a better claim on this. This explain still does not cover the meanings by the author. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)