Words for Small Sets
by Jeff
Image text: If things are too quiet, try asking a couple of friends whether "a couple" should always mean "two". As with the question of how many spaces should go after a period, it can turn acrimonious surprisingly fast unless all three of them agree.
I know exactly what Randall is attempting to do here. This is nerd troll bait. He is attempting to "troll" or get a certain group of people fired up by taking an unpopular side of the argument just to get the other person angry. And I'm taking the bait.
I disagree on "A Handful" and "Several". A Handful should be about 4 to 7 and several should be 6 to 8, averaging about 7, which sounds just like several. The other two are within the range that makes sense to me. Also, check out how he sneaks "a couple of friends" and "all three of them" into the image text very sneakily.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Is Randall just trolling us? Either way, feel free to let us know what your classifications are for these words in the comments.
Alphabet
by Jeff
Image text: Do I get to remove letters entirely? Or just rearrange them? Because the 'k/c' situation is ridiculous. Look, we can make out whenever. This is *immortality*!
This comic is a joke on the traditional pick-up line that goes something like this: "Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put 'u' and 'I' together." Terrible I know.
However, in typical XKCD fashion, rather than continue with that tired pickup line, Cueball jumps at his change to rearrange the alphabet and fix the English Orthography (An orthography is a standardized system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language. It includes rules of spelling, and may also concern other elements of the written language such as punctuation and capitalization.)
The joke there in is that hooking up with this girl can wait because this is a chance in a lifetime to rearrange the alphabet and change the English language.
The bacon
by Jeff
Image text: Normally pronounced 'THEH-buh-kon', I assume.
This comic plays off a typical American colloquialism in which "Bring home the bacon" means working hard and bringing money home to your family to put food on the table.
In this comic, Randall learns that "Bring home the bacon" is actually a double entendre for the above phrase and bringing home a drug that is known as "thebacon". In case, you aren't familiar, Vicodin is a pain medication that can be used by some as a drug of abuse.
I don't know if this counts as a "White Hat" comic, but either way, I'm tagging it.
Constraints
by Jeff
Image text: [title-text similarly alphabetized]
Sorry all, I'm still alive. Just on vacation. I'll keep this one short since it is late.
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising or satirical statement.
Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last several years, Twitter is a short message social network / communication service. All messages on the service need to be under 140 characters, including private messages.
I'm not sure about the backwards alphabetization, anyone?
Communication
by Jeff
Image text: Anyone who says that they're great at communicating but 'people are bad at listening' is confused about how communication works.
In this comic, White Hat tries to communicate to two other people that their is a hole in their path. Meanwhile, Megan is attempting to tell White Hat the same thing about the path in the other direction. Both head off into different directions, not knowing that their is a hole in the ground ahead of them because it was not properly communicated to them. They only knew that there was a hole behind them because that is what they observed personally. The holes are hilariously only about one person deep and I'm not sure why they didn't see them when they came upon them. However, either way, they fell into the holes, when the other person was trying to warn them that the hole was there.
In the last row, Beret Guy sees the hole and after he is not successful telling another person about it, he just takes him by the hand to show him the hole. Once that happens, they have exactly the same idea.
If you are not familiar with it, the symbol of the triangle with the exclamation mark in it is a widely used symbol that means "warning".
So It Has Come To This
by Jeff
Image text: 'Come to what?' 'You. Me. This moment.'
The image text is the continuation of the conversation in the comic. Not sure what to say about this one? I'm just getting home from travel, and I don't see anything below the surface here.
Good Cop, Dadaist Cop
by Jeff
Image text: NOW INVENT AN IMPOSSIBLE-TO-TRANSLATE LANGUAGE AND USE IT TO TELL US WHERE THE MONEY IS.
So, this is a play on the traditional police officer strategy of "Good Cop, Bad Cop", in which two officers play different parts to get the suspect to give the required information. One is nice to the suspect and the other is mean to the suspect.
However, in this comic, they use the strategy "Good Cop, Dadaist Cop" strategy in which one is nice to the suspect and the other is Dadaist, which is defined as (via the Free Dictionary) an European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that flouted conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by nonsense, travesty, and incongruity.
So, the Dadaist cop is spouting nonsense attempting to get the suspect to give some information. Unfortunately, I don't think it is going to work.
Car Problems
by Jeff
Image text: Or if you replace your car, we'll be happy to set it on fire again so you can take another crack at getting that shot.
Ok, so in this comic, Megan's friends, including our old friend Black Hat take the phrase "Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture?" literally and are critiquing the style and composition of the picture and not the subject. Megan is hoping that they have any insight to why her car was on fire this morning and not a photography critique.
Wake Up Sheeple
by Jeff
Image text: Your will be led to judgement like lambs to the slaughter--a simile whose existence, I might add, will not do your species any favors.
In this comic, Cueball is going through the traditional loudspeaker-having person refrain about the government having control over our lives and uses the refrain "Wake Up Sheeple", which has been referenced at least two other times in XKCD. Sheeple is a portmanteau (another thing that is loved in XKCD) of "sheep" and "people" used as a derisive term to describe people who thoughtlessly wander through their daily lives going exactly where they are "herded" by the powers that be.
However, in this comic, "sheeple" are not that, instead are a race of half sheep/half person who have slumbered beneath the Earth for ten thousand years and are apparently going to destroy the human race.
Wrong Superhero
by Jeff
Image text: Hi! Someone call for me? I'm a superhero who specializes in the study of God's creation of Man in the Book of Genesi-- HOLY SHIT A GIANT BUG!
So, here we have the return of the super hero from just two comics ago, Etymology-Man. And just like that comic, Etymology-Man is explaining the origination of words instead of actually helping. For those of you who were not here on Monday, Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.
Who they want is Entomology-Man because they are fighting a giant praying mantis and an army of little praying mantises. (manti? I'm not sure.) But, honestly, those "little" praying mantises still look huge compared to the typical size of manti. Entomology is the study of insects. Considering Etymology-Man, I'm not sure Entomology-Man would fight the mantis or study it.
In the image text, we find out instead of getting Entomology-Man, they accidentally call a superhero of Etiology. (UPDATE: Some commenters are suggesting Adam-ology as well, which would make a lot of sense as well. Head to the comments for their reasoning) (I'm going to assume Etiology-Man, since the previous two superheroes have been male, but the image text gives me no reason to assume that.) Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. An etiological myth, or origin myth, is a myth intended to explain the origins of cult practices, natural phenomena, proper names and the like. Looking at that definition, it is no surprise that the Etiology superhero is over-matched with the giant praying mantis.