0853: "Consecutive Vowels"

[wright2john]

I am sure we all realize that the figure is NOT a factor analysis!

Minor point, but oooaaaa; I get turned on by a good graaaaph.

[alexriehl]

Y'all do realize that this one is number 853, right?

Yeah, I think 4 people have said so, and no one does anything. Oy! Moderator! Please change topic title to reflect correct comic #!

[GenericPseudonym]

[...]
Or take this site on the correlation between Pirates and Global Temperatures. (As some have noted, it should have additional data, for more recent times. But it shouldn't affect the correlation that seriously.)

That link is blasphemy! The original source: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s.

[gjbloom]

Queueier is vowelier than queueing.

[Mooglefrooglian]

Okay, so how many words with > 5 consecutive vowels are there? Or are there words with part vowels? The graph makes no sense.

Where is the joke? Is it the woman choking him? Is that erotic? I don't get it, is she supposed to be crazy?

[nik3daz]

X axis is more granular than it should be. Since 'queuing' has the most consecutive vowels, (according to /usr/share/dict/words) the fine granularity towards the left of the graph shouldn't exist.

Also, doesn't this make xkcd a very unsexy webcomic...?

[JHobbs]

If this applied to the spelling and not the pronunciation, then would "rhythm" be considered the least sexy word in the English language?

Assuming you don't count y as a vowel (my brother always insists it is) then I think syzygy is the least sexy you can get.

[chrisk]

Does this principle count for names as well?

In my Nanowrimo novel last year, I gave the female main character the unusual name of Mairiae. (It was taken from a list of obscure Gaulish gods and goddesses.) And to me and my hero, at least, she was an appealing lady.

[Netzach]

Am I the only one who thinks that since words usually have a natural number of vowels, the graph indicates that real arousal kicks in when there's over 30 consecutive vowels.

[Ares B]

This is also why cat girls = sexy. They just miaoued.

Then the Star Trek novel about the cat people from planet Eeiauo must be the sexiest book ever written.

[Mencel]

Could someone please tell us how 'voyeur' was initially spelt before he corrected the error? I am interested to know, it's probably a code or something.

[Libertarianist]

Longest English string of consonants: Euouae.
Of any language: Hooiaioia

And what about consonants?
Twelfths, angstrum, strengths, latchstring, borschts. How about "borscht's schwa" as in, "The bacon borscht's schwa occurs in the word 'bacon.'" 10.

[Hauk]

In Norway there once was a guy calling himself "saueøyeøyaeier".. It's actually a real norwagian word and it has 12 consecutive vowels..

[humanalien]

Wouldn't the word "peeing" (which as a long e sound) be just as effective as "queuing" according to Randall's comic?

Better mind your pees and queues.

[Swivelguy]

My girlfriend and I were discussing this comic, and then she said, "braaaaaaaaaains."

[VelociraptorEvader]

This should be #853 not #852! I know that this is just repeating earlier posts. However I think it is important.

[BioTube]

The fact that everybody's now complaining about the number must mean that they've run out of other things to whine about(I know I originally forgot about it when I saw the idiot claiming IPA was an acceptable thing to use in a dictionary).

Anyway, to matters of real import: to everybody who claims words have no vowels on account of being spelt with 'y', I've set up a Stop'n'Drop for you in the back, no charge.

[christmahanikwanzikah]

Trivia time! What's the only U.S. city whose name is all vowels? (Can't get sexier than that!)

Spoiler:

Aiea, HI

On the flipside, we have:

Spoiler:

Zzyxz, California

[Dr. Diaphanous]

The longest vowel string I could come up with was 13:

La grenouille-taureau y a eu ouaouarons

Which is French for

The bullfrog has had Bullfrogs there.

[gebuskrost]

I don't speak or know Russian, but being an Eastern European language it has plenty of consonants, right? And yet I'm turned on by the sound of that one. IN YOUR FACE CAUSATION!

[Ares B]

In Finnish there's the word "hääyöaie", meaning "wedding night intention". I suppose there's no need for any more aphrodesiac than that.

[Jyrki]

Longest English string of consonants: Euouae.
Of any language: Hooiaioia

Check your sources, for speakers of Norweian, Dutch and Finnish have presented words with longer sequences of vowels in this forum. Your source may think that 'y' is a consonant. We all know that "Wheel of fortune" treats it that way, but its status in the English language varies, and many languages use it as a vowel exclusively. Let me present the Finnish word

KYYKKYHYPPY

as a word with 5 vowels (the meaning: the name of a gymnastics exercise where you start from a squatting position, jump up and forward and return to a squatting position = a jumping jack??). For us 'y' is phonetically equivalent to German umlaut-u. The longest sequence of consecutive vowels in a meaningful sentence of Finnish that I could cook up at this time is 14:

SANA RIIUUYÖAIE EI AUENNUT ENSI LUKEMALLA.

(the meaning: "The word 'riiuuyöaie' did not become clear after reading it once." Check previous posts for the meaning of that 9 vowel monster. ) If I used dialectic language I could make it 16 by using the perfect tense instead, but surely that would be cheating.

[goofy]

Linguistics:

Queueing = \kju'iŋ\
Voyeur = \voIj'ɹ̩\

Been a while since I've transcribed like that, so feel free to correct me. I tried to remember how to do it on my own. Any dictionary worth its salt will 'spell' the pronunciations according to the IPA form.

Anyway, the 'vowels' of queueing/voyeur are not as dense as they seem.

queueing: /ˡkju.ɪŋ/ or /ˡkju.wɪŋ/ or something like that, at most 2 consecutive vowels
voyeur: /voj.ˡjə˞/ no consecutive vowels

Clearly this chart is talking about vowel letters, so it will only work on literate people.

[najodleglejszy]

Do consecutive consonants have the opposite effect?

"Nietzsche"

the example indicates they definitely DO.

[BioTube]

the name of a gymnastics exercise where you start from a squatting position, jump up and forward and return to a squatting position = a jumping jack??

I've never seen(or heard of) jumping jacks involving squatting; you start with your legs together and arms down, jump and assume an 'X' position(whence the name), jump again and assume the starting position. Repeat until dead.

[dedwrekka]

the meaning: the name of a gymnastics exercise where you start from a squatting position, jump up and forward and return to a squatting position = a jumping jack??

It would be a Hop Squat (Sometimes called a Squat Hop). You can usually do it on stairs where you start in a squat, and jump up to the next step while returning to the squatting position, repeat.

Now, returning you to your normal programming: Wrong comic numbers, misspellings on the internet (Oh my!), and consecutive vowels.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't thing "Queueing" would work when spoken, based on the hypothesis. Every time I hear Queueing it's spoken as "Q-ing" which involves only one vowel sound.

[goofy]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't thing "Queueing" would work when spoken, based on the hypothesis. Every time I hear Queueing it's spoken as "Q-ing" which involves only one vowel sound.

You're right, it has at most 2 consecutive vowel sounds.

[deindorfer]

When I lived in Knightsbridge, there was this blue-eyed Paraguayan who really pulled my latchstrings..

[Lerkistan]

Linguistics:

Queueing = \kju'iŋ\
Voyeur = \voIj'ɹ̩\

Been a while since I've transcribed like that, so feel free to correct me. I tried to remember how to do it on my own. Any dictionary worth its salt will 'spell' the pronunciations according to the IPA form.

Anyway, the 'vowels' of queueing/voyeur are not as dense as they seem.

I can't really spell IPA, but read enough to see why you would think that... I should be more like "voo-ah-y-uh-r", with a long "uh".

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

Stupid forums ate my post

[ccx]

So I'm the only one who read that as "queening"?
Oh well...

[Mapar]

Angstschreeuw! (Dutch for "fear scream". Guess it being un-sexy fits.)

I registered just to learn you an even better example; slechtstschrijvend (translated into worst writing: e.g. Of all the people he is the worst writing. Which is actually good grammar in dutch )

Also; Haaieeieren or papagaaieeieren (Shark's eggs or Parrot's eggs) are dutch words with 9 consecutive vowels. Yeah, that's right!

Except that according to the new spelling rules, you should write "haaieneieren", IIRC.

[jgh]

[...]
Or take this site on the correlation between Pirates and Global Temperatures

Things I've managed to sneek into a real meetings:
Since WW2 global temperatures have increased, as have teenage pregnancy rates....
Since WW2 Coca-Cola consumption has increased, as have global tempartures...
Since WW2 teenage pregnancy rates have increased, as have global oil prices...

Oh no!!! We must stop teens having sex to prevent the global climate change apocolypse, and bring fuel prices down!

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

[...]
Or take this site on the correlation between Pirates and Global Temperatures

Things I've managed to sneek into a real meetings:
Since WW2 global temperatures have increased, as have teenage pregnancy rates....
Since WW2 Coca-Cola consumption has increased, as have global tempartures...
Since WW2 teenage pregnancy rates have increased, as have global oil prices...

Oh no!!! We must stop teens having sex to prevent the global climate change apocolypse, and bring fuel prices down!

This one actually makes sense. If we stop reproducing so much, we'll use less resources (as a whole), therefore lessening pollution and prices

[Jan_d]

This Comic made me aware that the sexiest german word is "Teeeier" (read "Tee-Eier" -> "Tea-Eggs") going by new spelling rules. Can't wait to try this one out.
With old spelling rules it would be "Artillerieeinheit" . I found this so hilarious that i had to register just to tell you.

[hthall]

Title-text: But the windows! What if there's a voyeur watchi-- wait, now I'm turned on too.

How to get the girls to line up for you.

EDIT: cleaned up the HTML-coded apostrophes, and corrected the spelling of "voyeur", anticipating that Monsieur Munroe will do the same

when you click the comic in your post it brings you to the wrong comic.

Oof. Thanks for catching that.

[fortyseventeen]

Read the whole thread* and didn't find this joke yet, so:

It wasn't suspicious to anyone how "queueing" worked on the female, while the male was aroused by "voyeur" with it's questionable sometimes-vowel? Naturally this must have a genetic explanation...



*as most of you couldn't be arsed to, apparently

[itsmattknox]

Do consecutive consonants have the opposite effect?

"Nietzsche"

That depends on how attractive you find Lrrr and Ndnd.

[Ieuan_Maiden]

I would just like to say that my first name is Ieuan.

With a vowel to consonant ratio of 4:1 how come women don't act like that towards me ?

[udqbpn]

*goes on a stabbing spree with his switchblade* www.udqbpn.us