Lisa's adventures in linguistics
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In the current Penny & Aggie strip, Lisa continues to enjoy her first linguistics lecture. She's entranced by the International Phonetic Alphabet, which hits her like the green-screen "digital rain" from The Matrix:
The last panel shows a scene from one of the psychic universes this experience transports her to:
SeanH said,
December 12, 2011 @ 10:28 am
And the professor's line echoes Morpheus' from that same film: "You believe it is the year 1999, when in fact, it's closer to 2199." One of the less-iconic quotes.
Tom S. Fox said,
December 12, 2011 @ 10:39 am
“Lisa Winklemeyer accepts the Nobel Peace Prize from the reanimated Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof.”
blahedo said,
December 12, 2011 @ 11:46 am
What is the other student doing? The look on her face suggests she's panicked about something, presumably the IPA, but she appears to be… texting?
Tom Vinson said,
December 12, 2011 @ 11:58 am
@blahedo
It looks like she wants to text something (or take notes) but suddenly realizes that her keypad doesn't support IPA.
Ray Dillinger said,
December 12, 2011 @ 2:41 pm
It's fairly common now for kids to show up to class with no old-fashioned paper notebook (or textbook for that matter). They rely on taking notes with their tablet or phone or laptop, which usually has the e-text of the class textbooks on it too, and/or a device with a digital voice-recording function.
With no paper & pen, and no previous setup or experience with IPA input methods, it looks like she's panicking because she's at a complete loss about how to take notes regarding the IPA.
Maybe the camera on her tab doesn't have enough zoom to get identifiable images of the IPA characters off the board, either, or maybe she's still got an old tab with no camera.
maidhc said,
December 13, 2011 @ 1:56 am
I don't think she's entranced with the IPA, she's zoned off into her fantasy world and is totally ignoring the lecture.
John F said,
December 14, 2011 @ 8:23 am
@maidhc, I think it's both