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He has used this joke better already. This time, it doesn't work for a couple different reasons. First, that "lesson" is the whole point of this conversation in Through the Looking Glass. It's in there precisely to show the impossibility of trying to communicate with someone who doesn't follow any rules of language. The craziness of what Humpty Dumpty is saying is self-evident, and doesn't need to be further underlined by having someone say "but that's crazy". This is the equivalent of all those jokes in Blackadder where Baldrick does something stupid, and then Blackadder tells him how stupid he is.
Second, Humpty Dumpty doesn't say "it means precisely what you, the listener, choose it to mean". He is very specific about this, going on to say that "'the question is... which is to be master-- that's all.'"
On the other hand, this comic has drawing in it, and is actually about language, which makes it the best XKCD in months.
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2652 Self-deprecation can't last forever; at some point you have to actually be good at your job
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2651 It's hard to be as smart as Randall, because you become aware of so many conflicting threats and demands you have to keep in bala...
You know for a long time I stopped reading XKCD. Now I'm reading it regularly. I think I might have found a potential weakness in the hateblog format. q:
ReplyDeleteRandall has probably become the sort of person who would tell the "joke" in comic 169. I mean, come on, can you see him passing up ANY opportunity to be smug, no matter how poorly earned?
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