0943: "Empirical"

[CodexDraco]

I like this philosophy. Living by doing. Awesome comic.

[finlay]

The joke's really funny, I like the comic very much.

But I would like to point out to anyone in the forums who doesn't know it yet: "will" originally meant something akin to the modern word "want" (which lives on in the expression "be willing to"). Hence the expression "[do something] if you will", which would not be very grammatical if it meant a modal verb like it usually does.

So basically, "will you marry me?" roughly means "Is it your will to marry me?". And since it's a very formulaic expression, it hasn't changed much in the past few hundred years.

Even then, "will" very rarely denotes a neutral prediction in English. Our language isn't very good at future tenses; they're either modal, or half the time we use the "present" tense to talk about the future. The comic makes me facepalm a bit, because I would kind of have expected Randall to be aware of pragmatics. (Either that or you've all been had and it's actually quite funny.)

[gnoitall]

Being married: able to argue more conveniently

Reminds me of a line from the ending of The Horse and His Boy.

This quote?

Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.

Sounds like my own 25 years of marriage.

Congratulations, Randall.

[Rabbit_Ears]

Do you have a control group for the experiment? Otherwise the data might be rendered invalid.

[Eutychus]

Being married: able to argue more conveniently

Reminds me of a line from the ending of The Horse and His Boy.

This quote?

Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.

I should have known this would be recognised here and I guess I should have attributed it

The first time I used this was back in about 1985 when my fiancée and I were staying with a friend whose parents were marriage guidance counsellors. It so happened we'd been having a bit of a rough time. At the dinner table the friend's dad came over all patronising and asked me "so why do you want to get married then?" It's not often I have the right response for this type of situation, but that quote just popped into my head and it ended the conversation beautifully.

[Uzh]

The only reason that people should ever get married is because they love each other enough to want to be together for the rest of their life's.

Nah.
Tax reasons (depending on the country you live in)
Heritage reasons
Sociobiological reasons
Financial reasons
Dynastical reasons

So you you took the romance out of the comic title, I took the sarcasm.

PS: Thanks to god my wife isn't nerd enough to ever know this forum exists. If I'm mistaken - you know, why I married you, honey, do you?

[JordanL]

The joke's really funny, I like the comic very much.

But I would like to point out to anyone in the forums who doesn't know it yet: "will" originally meant something akin to the modern word "want" (which lives on in the expression "be willing to"). Hence the expression "[do something] if you will", which would not be very grammatical if it meant a modal verb like it usually does.

So basically, "will you marry me?" roughly means "Is it your will to marry me?". And since it's a very formulaic expression, it hasn't changed much in the past few hundred years.

Even then, "will" very rarely denotes a neutral prediction in English. Our language isn't very good at future tenses; they're either modal, or half the time we use the "present" tense to talk about the future. The comic makes me facepalm a bit, because I would kind of have expected Randall to be aware of pragmatics. (Either that or you've all been had and it's actually quite funny.)

I think it's more likely that for this particular strip Randall couldn't give a flying fuck about "will" vs. "shall" vs. etc.

The ability to discern meaning and the ability to discern what level of discernment is appropriate for the situation are both important.

[Roberto Font]

The only reason that people should ever get married is because they love each other enough to want to be together for the rest of their life's.

Nah.
Tax reasons (depending on the country you live in)
Heritage reasons
Sociobiological reasons
Financial reasons
Dynastical reasons

So you you took the romance out of the comic title, I took the sarcasm.

PS: Thanks to god my wife isn't nerd enough to ever know this forum exists. If I'm mistaken - you know, why I married you, honey, do you?

Hahahaha ok I don't mean to start an argument about that, I respect everyone's opinions (even if I don't share them) and I don't even deny that getting married for other reasons like some of those you just wrote might be beneficial or convenient, I´m just trying to say that none of those are the ideals of the marriage institution, and in many cases getting married for the wrong reasons might bring a lot of suffering and problems (I know it firsthand because my parents got married just because my mom got pregnant and trust me, no one got any good out of that, it only meant years of suffering). Anyway my point really was that implying that their reason to get married might not be the most "correct" one could be offensive, who knows? They might be very much in love (Which I really hope is the case).

PS: Besides, you can clearly tell that the comic depicts a religious marriage, which is not the same has a legal one, I agree completely that a legal marriage out of convenience might be a good thing (even if it is clearly against the law in many cases), but a religious one? Well that would be just to hypocritical for me to accept.

[eyespyprey]

First of all..

Hello Scarlet Manuka *waves*

2nd of all...

I created this account to say this:

I have been following this comic for almost 2 years and GOOMHR!!!! Absolutely spot on all the time!

3rd...

Not insensitive.. this is exactly the response he should give. This art is an expose of the author's life and it is brilliant!

4th.. I read it as you have just got engaged.. but I think you are celebrating a big anniversary.. whichever.. congratulations.

5th... Please keep this up..

[lesmith11]

And finally it's my turn:

• Survive major life threatening illness.
• Realise life's too short.
• Get married.

GOOMHR

Or am I reading too much into this?

Dude that post was very insensitive... You really should´nt talk that way about something so personal, even less here of all places... I really hate bringing to attention such a post but I could´nt help it, I had to say something. You should keep such thoughts to yourself next time.

The fact he said GOOMHR says to me that Roger has been through the same thing himself and you're the insensitive one. Guess the only way to find out is to ask.

[feyayeruka]

*shrug* I got married for passports - my husband now holds Australian citizenship, and I'm comfortably well-off.

[Cactus Wren]

1.

In the first person simply "shall" foretells,
In "will" a threat or else a promise dwells.
In third or second person "shall" does threat,
"Will" simply then portends a future feat.

2. I am at work on a fanfic in which the proposal takes the form, "May we marry?" (Well, actually the first hint of it takes the form, "In your culture, what customs are there about marriage? Do you have any tradition about who should be the first to suggest it? What are the ceremonies?"

[Stanistani]

The only reason that people should ever get married is because they love each other enough to want to be together for the rest of their life's.

Nah.
Tax reasons (depending on the country you live in)
Heritage reasons
Sociobiological reasons
Financial reasons
Dynastical reasons

So you you took the romance out of the comic title, I took the sarcasm.

PS: Thanks to god my wife isn't nerd enough to ever know this forum exists. If I'm mistaken - you know, why I married you, honey, do you?

To fulfill the seer's prophecy, of course.

Now that my heir is full grown, I have given to him the ancestral sword of Cawdor.

[Felshen]

The timing for this comic is perfect because my professor was literally just lecturing about empiricism today in philosophy class. Get out of my head, Randall!

[ribblefizz]

The only reason that people should ever get married is because they love each other enough to want to be together for the rest of their life's.

Nah.
Tax reasons (depending on the country you live in)
Heritage reasons
Sociobiological reasons
Financial reasons
Dynastical reasons

So you you took the romance out of the comic title, I took the sarcasm.

PS: Thanks to god my wife isn't nerd enough to ever know this forum exists. If I'm mistaken - you know, why I married you, honey, do you?

Hahahaha ok I don't mean to start an argument about that, I respect everyone's opinions (even if I don't share them) and I don't even deny that getting married for other reasons like some of those you just wrote might be beneficial or convenient, I´m just trying to say that none of those are the ideals of the marriage institution, and in many cases getting married for the wrong reasons might bring a lot of suffering and problems (I know it firsthand because my parents got married just because my mom got pregnant and trust me, no one got any good out of that, it only meant years of suffering). Anyway my point really was that implying that their reason to get married might not be the most "correct" one could be offensive, who knows? They might be very much in love (Which I really hope is the case).

PS: Besides, you can clearly tell that the comic depicts a religious marriage, which is not the same has a legal one, I agree completely that a legal marriage out of convenience might be a good thing (even if it is clearly against the law in many cases), but a religious one? Well that would be just to hypocritical for me to accept.

1. *rest of their lives. Sorry, that's been bugging the hell out of me.

2. I think that in many cases, marrying for love (which can be fleeting and can cloud one's judgment) is the situation that can "bring a lot of suffering and problems." In marriages of practicality, there is less likely to be an emotional backdraft when things (inevitably) hit a rocky patch. The person above who mentions that she married for purposes of citizenship, for instance, is less likely to feel heartbroken or betrayed when differences arise, because she presumably has less emotionally vested in it. Her marriage might not be one of romance and undying devotion (though maybe it is, who knows), but it's probably a good deal more stable and well-balanced than some marriages of people who married for a love that didn't last.

Also, my own parents got married for the same reason yours did, and they've been quite happily married for 40+ years; besides which a pregnancy usually results from two people being (or thinking they are) in love. In that light, your parents' marriage can actually stand as an example of why marrying for "impersonal" reasons might be the better option, though my parents' marriage indicates that a generalization based on that assumption would be incorrect.

3. I'm not sure how we got to "the cartoon characters are getting married for the wrong reasons and it's hypocritical," but in any event I don't see anything at all to indicate that the comic depicts a religious marriage - there's a dress and veil/bow-tie, an arch (presumably floral), and an officiant. Nothing anywhere to indicate religion that I see.

4. Last but certainly not least, I think you completely missed the point of the comment you called insensitive. RogerB's post was referencing the fact that too often, people sort of coast through life, thinking that they'll settle down with the person they love *after* they've finished their postgraduate studies... gotten their dream job... lost weight... traveled the world... turned 30... made their first million... become famous... solved world hunger... written a novel... whatever. RogerB's post was simply pointing out that people who have survived major illnesses tend to realize what's important: that "life's too short" to squander time that you could be spending with the one you love; that if you love someone and know you want to marry them, you shouldn't wait for "some day" but should seize the moment before it's taken away from you.

You said, "it implies that the reason for getting married is that he is coming out of a traumatizing experience and he realized that life is short, and saying something like that its just terrible." How on earth can it be terrible for someone to realize that they do *not* have an infinite number of days so they want to spend every single day they have, starting RIGHT NOW, with the person they love, instead of letting any of those days slip away? Good Lord, Hollywood and the romantic novel industries would collapse in on themselves if they had to give up the trope of "Darling, all this has made me realize that I have been a fool not to spend every possible moment with you - I don't want to lose one more minute, marry me, marry me today!"

The only possible way I can see it being "terrible" or "insensitive" is if you're assuming that the person is saying, "Wow, I almost died; I'd better grab the first random stranger I see and marry them, just so I can have the experience of 'getting/being married' and check that off of my Things To Accomplish In Life list."

Consider this: I know a couple who announced, in 2009, that they will be getting married in 2012. It's going to take them that long, they decided, to properly plan and pay for the wedding. Although I respect their decision and wish them nothing but joy, I have to wonder... if one of them is (gods forbid) stricken by a fatal illness in 2013 or a car accident in 2011, will they be happy that they spent three years planning their wedding, instead of spending those three years being married? Nowadays of course people tend to move in together without a second thought so "being married" is only a matter of paperwork in many cases, but the point remains: When you realize that "life's too short" you're more inclined to revise your priorities, and (for instance) realize that having a big fancy wedding is nice, but what you REALLY want is to get married to the person you love, right now, before another day passes by, so that you can spend as much of your life as possible loving them, and being loved by them, and having the world know it.

There's nothing insensitive about it in the least.

Best wishes for the future to RogerB, and to Randall (although I wonder if we might be reading too much into the comic).

[Huojin]

The joke's really funny, I like the comic very much.

But I would like to point out to anyone in the forums who doesn't know it yet: "will" originally meant something akin to the modern word "want" (which lives on in the expression "be willing to"). Hence the expression "[do something] if you will", which would not be very grammatical if it meant a modal verb like it usually does.

So basically, "will you marry me?" roughly means "Is it your will to marry me?". And since it's a very formulaic expression, it hasn't changed much in the past few hundred years.

German!

Where "wollen", the conjugations of which are "ich will", "du willst", "er/sie/es will", etc., meaning variations on "to want" or "to want to".

[Bobcatco]

Congratulations!. I hope they have many happy years and a few bad days to make the years seem better.

[Uzh]

So basically, "will you marry me?" roughly means "Is it your will to marry me?". And since it's a very formulaic expression, it hasn't changed much in the past few hundred years.

German!

Where "wollen", the conjugations of which are "ich will", "du willst", "er/sie/es will", etc., meaning variations on "to want" or "to want to".

So in german The Question (with capital letters) during the wedding ceremony is "Willst Du den hier anwesenden..." - "Do you want to marry the here present...." and the answer is "Ja, ich will." - "Yes, I want." So in Germany (and Austria, parts of Luxemburg, Belgium and Switzerland and of course in Liechtenstein, I always forget Liechtenstein!) people rather state their willingness than to state a firm prospective.

On the other hand there are a lot of every-day-questions (both in english and german, I think) that - if correctly answered - will lead to at least irritation. "Can you tell me what time it is?" - "Yes." - "OK, do you want to tell me the time?" - "Surely I want to." - "*argh* Will you tell me...?" - "Possibly." - "What time is it?" - "Ah! It's 8.20..."

Or: "Do you know, where the town hall is?", "Can you give me a lift?", "Do *hups* do I get anossa drink?" and so on...

Georg

[Plasma Mongoose]

That is one sneaky way to trick a science nerd into tying the knot.

[Viteh]

Is the guy wearing a little hat in the last panel? There's a small bump on the right side of his head.

[Huojin]

So basically, "will you marry me?" roughly means "Is it your will to marry me?". And since it's a very formulaic expression, it hasn't changed much in the past few hundred years.

German!

Where "wollen", the conjugations of which are "ich will", "du willst", "er/sie/es will", etc., meaning variations on "to want" or "to want to".

So in german The Question (with capital letters) during the wedding ceremony is "Willst Du den hier anwesenden..." - "Do you want to marry the here present...." and the answer is "Ja, ich will." - "Yes, I want." So in Germany (and Austria, parts of Luxemburg, Belgium and Switzerland and of course in Liechtenstein, I always forget Liechtenstein!) people rather state their willingness than to state a firm prospective.

On the other hand there are a lot of every-day-questions (both in english and german, I think) that - if correctly answered - will lead to at least irritation. "Can you tell me what time it is?" - "Yes." - "OK, do you want to tell me the time?" - "Surely I want to." - "*argh* Will you tell me...?" - "Possibly." - "What time is it?" - "Ah! It's 8.20..."

Or: "Do you know, where the town hall is?", "Can you give me a lift?", "Do *hups* do I get anossa drink?" and so on...

Georg

Hahaha, not quite. The Germans use "werden", "ich werde, du wirst, er/sie/es wird", etc., to mean "to will" and things like that.

[dmm]

Somebody on here once mentioned a theory that Randall represents himself in the comic with a female. [So the female doing the proposing is therefore not gender role reversal. (??? Don't be ashamed if that confuses you. I'm not even sure what it means.)] Anyway, if so, then his new wife (assuming this strip is inspired by Randall's RL) has the perfect sense of humor for marrying a guy like him.

[scarletmanuka]

Hello Scarlet Manuka *waves*

Hi espy! *waves back* Are we going to do a joee/glasnt kind of thing now?

I read it as you have just got engaged...

What is with all the people assuming that this particular comic must somehow be the latest news bulletin from Randall's life? It's certainly not the first comic he's done about marriage. And he's been engaged for quite some time now.

[SmokeyMaverick]

Whoaaa.... Long time XKCD viewer, infrequent poster. But I HAD to comment on this one....

I just saw it now - and this past weekend is the weekend that I had been planning for months to betroth my girlfriend (learned that word this past weekend - wayyy better than 'engaged').

Now I really need a signed print of this... Might even go with the guitar dudes idea (but not as sweet as the guitar dude's idea) and instead of a guest book just have this comic on large white posterboard instead of a guestbook, so we can frame it later.

Bump to add this comic to the signed prints in the store please.... (otherwise I'll just have to print out at Kinkos...)

[catita]

Congratulations!

to repeat that experiment you would have to divorce/test for re-marriage... it's not totally improbable, Liz Taylor did it...
Anyway, I wish you the best!

Before my fiancé proposed I told him that different syntaxes for the question could mean various different responses from me (like he:"would you marry me?", me:"sure, if you proposed!", or he:"could you marry me?", me:"challenge accepted!"). Imagine this in a mixture of spanish (my lang), portuguese (his lang), english and a dash of french. When he actually did propose the phrasing was accurate and very chivalrious with minimal amounts of foreing language. The actual experiment is taking some preparation...

[SmokeyMaverick]

Thanks for the congrats!

I thought long and hard about what I was going to ask... I settled on "Would you spend the rest of your life with me?" - boom, showed ring - because in today's day and age, Marriage isn't holding much water anymore.

We were having drinks afterwards, celebrating, and her being a lawyer, with her mind replaying the scene, thought to herself and said out loud: "My god - you never asked me to marry you!" At which point I did, and she said yes, again laughing.

[Uzh]

German!

Where "wollen", the conjugations of which are "ich will", "du willst", "er/sie/es will", etc., meaning variations on "to want" or "to want to".

So in german The Question (with capital letters) during the wedding ceremony is "Willst Du den hier anwesenden..." - "Do you want to marry the here present...." and the answer is "Ja, ich will." - "Yes, I want." So in Germany (and Austria, parts of Luxemburg, Belgium and Switzerland and of course in Liechtenstein, I always forget Liechtenstein!) people rather state their willingness than to state a firm prospective.

Hahaha, not quite. The Germans use "werden", "ich werde, du wirst, er/sie/es wird", etc., to mean "to will" and things like that.

Yes, they do. But not in this occasions. If I started my proposal with "Wirst Du mich heiraten?" - "Will you marry me?" I got more puzzled looks back than usual. The normal form is "Möchtest (or: willst) Du mich heiraten" - "Do you want to marry me?" Some ask different questions to come to the same result, though.

Georg

[RogerB]

And finally it's my turn:

• Survive major life threatening illness.
• Realise life's too short.
• Get married.

GOOMHR

Or am I reading too much into this?

Dude that post was very insensitive... You really should´nt talk that way about something so personal, even less here of all places... I really hate bringing to attention such a post but I could´nt help it, I had to say something. You should keep such thoughts to yourself next time.

The fact he said GOOMHR says to me that Roger has been through the same thing himself and you're the insensitive one. Guess the only way to find out is to ask.

Yes, that's exactly it; it was shortly after I recovered from leukaemia that my girlfriend and I decided that we really did love each other, didn't know what were we waiting for and got married.

I didn't think I was being insensitive and if I've caused offence I'm sorry.

[RogerB]

4. Last but certainly not least, I think you completely missed the point of the comment you called insensitive. RogerB's post was referencing the fact that too often, people sort of coast through life, thinking that they'll settle down with the person they love *after* they've finished their postgraduate studies... gotten their dream job... lost weight... traveled the world... turned 30... made their first million... become famous... solved world hunger... written a novel... whatever. RogerB's post was simply pointing out that people who have survived major illnesses tend to realize what's important: that "life's too short" to squander time that you could be spending with the one you love; that if you love someone and know you want to marry them, you shouldn't wait for "some day" but should seize the moment before it's taken away from you.

I missed reading this earlier or would have included it in my previous post. That's exactly what I was trying to say ribblefizz, thank you.

[dmm]

ribblefizz and RogerB are so right. Too many couples are worried about "buyer's remorse." Get over it. When you find somebody who's right for you, don't dilly-dally. Get the honest opinions of your parents, siblings, and close friends. If they also believe you've found a good match, then commit yourself and never look back. In the end, successful marriages and lifelong loves are the accumulated result of many years of daily effort. Every day you forgive. Every day you give yourself. Every day you spend time together, talking, planning, dreaming, discussing, arguing, crying, kissing, working, playing, cleaning, raising children, mourning the dead, etc., etc., etc. The bond grows and grows until eventually you can't imagine life apart from one another. If your marriage isn't the greatest adventure you've ever had, then you're not doing it right.
p.s. I realize that occasionally someone finds himself/herself married to a true loser. But that's rare. No way does that account for the divorce rate. Divorce is mostly caused by pride, unforgiveness, ingratitude, selfishness, and laziness. I see a lot of fairly nice people getting divorced from fairly nice people. So sad!

[Edrees]

But how are you going to repeat the experiment, for verifiability? I mean, it could have just been an outlier.

It's repeated by the masses, it's called divorce and re marry

[ProfessorTom]

So I'm curious, who got married? What was the spark of inspiration of this particular cartoon?

[scarletmanuka]

I'm also curious. Why did you create a new thread instead of posting in the existing one? Why didn't you get the thread title format right? Why couldn't you even spell the name of the comic correctly?

[ConMan]

Reported for merge, but I'll also let the OP know that, whether it's related to this comic or not, Randall married his fiancé and mentioned it both in his blag and on his Google+ feed.

[ProfessorTom]

I'm also curious. Why did you create a new thread instead of posting in the existing one? Why didn't you get the thread title format right? Why couldn't you even spell the name of the comic correctly?

I didn't think I got the spelling wrong. I could have swore I copy/pasted. I looked for an existing thread but I didn't find one. Perhaps now we know why.

Reported for merge, but I'll also let the OP know that, whether it's related to this comic or not, Randall married his fiancé and mentioned it both in his blag and on his Google+ feed.

'Twas what I thought, but I wanted confirmation. I'm only familiar with the comics themselves, not the blog nor the author's personal life.

[Felstaff]

I didn't think I got the spelling wrong. I could have swore I copy/pasted. I looked for an existing thread but I didn't find one. Perhaps now we know why.

• First of all, the thread in question was on the front page
• Secondly, the very first thing written in the rules section, at the top of the front page, right in front of you, tells you exactly how to sort the comics by number so you don't have to search.
• Thirdly... here, have a picture.
  

  

  Numericalicious.PNG (6.91 KiB) Viewed 1376 times

• Fourthly; rules on starting new threads is also in the rules

Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse! It takes 72 seconds to read. I timed, and I'm a slow reader! With little else to do with my way than time myself reading something I wrote over a year ago!

Anyway, Randall Munroe got married. So... yeah.

[Anonymously Famous]

I have never read the blog or the G+ feed either, so...

Congrats to Randall.

[bigjeff5]

Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse! It takes 72 seconds to read. I timed, and I'm a slow reader! With little else to do with my way than time myself reading something I wrote over a year ago!

I lol'd.

[scarletmanuka]

I lol'd.

I lol'd more at "Note how the numbers go up in numerical order. This is why we have the numbers. So we can order them. Numerically."