Archive for Linguistics in the comics
August 29, 2016 @ 12:35 pm· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "I'm excited about the proposal to add a 'brontosaurus' emoji codepoint because it has the potential to bring together a half-dozen different groups of pedantic people into a single glorious internet argument."
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August 27, 2016 @ 5:01 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd:

Mouseover Title: "The 95% confidence interval suggests Rexthor's dog could also be a cat, or possibly a teapot."
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August 25, 2016 @ 6:07 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's SMBC:

Update — Comment from a friend:
Replace “rocks” with “verbs” and you have us pretty much nailed.
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August 20, 2016 @ 6:29 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Tank McNamara for 8/8/2016:

The Olympic Games are unique in showcasing competition in so many sports by the elite athletes of so many nations. It is an amazing stew of many cultures, yet there are common experiences. For instance it is amazing to hear "at the end of the day …" spoken in so many different languages by pundits from all over the globe.
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July 30, 2016 @ 6:36 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
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July 29, 2016 @ 5:22 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Yesterday's xkcd:

Mouseover title: ""Ok, I lit the smoke bomb and rolled it under the bed. Let's see if it–" ::FWOOOSH:: "Politifact says: PANTS ON FIRE!""
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July 21, 2016 @ 7:30 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "'Or maybe, because we're suddenly having so many conversations through written text, we'll start relying MORE on altered spelling to indicate meaning!' 'Wat.'"
It's unusual for Randall Munroe to get so many things wrong, starting with the implication that such things as pictographic (as opposed to logographic) writing systems actually exist. But I'll leave the discussion for the comments section.
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July 8, 2016 @ 4:26 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "President Andrew Johnson once said, 'If I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet.'"
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June 23, 2016 @ 4:34 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
A couple of days ago, Dilbert highlighted a problem with robot emotions, beyond the issue that Zach Wienersmith raised a few weeks ago:

The external evidence of "cognition" is sometimes obscure and ambiguous, but the Turing Test approach is especially problematic in evaluating "emotion".
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June 22, 2016 @ 5:10 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd, headlined "Intervocalic Fortition":

Mouseover title: "These pranks happen all the time. English doesn't allow one-syllable words to end in a lax vowel, so writers on The Simpsons decided to mess with future linguists by introducing the word 'meh.'"
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June 18, 2016 @ 6:26 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "It's like you tried to define a formal grammar based on fragments of a raw database dump from the QuickBooks file of a company that's about to collapse in an accounting scandal."
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May 29, 2016 @ 3:46 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Or are they just programmed to act like they do? Today's SMBC asks (and answers) the analogous question about emotions:

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May 21, 2016 @ 7:09 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
Today's Pearls Before Swine explores the consequences of flapping and voicing in American English:

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