Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn

[Wraith]

What I find very weird is using a plural verb for a single person, and only with the personal pronoun. Like "Tilly is at the counter", "Ask Tilly, who is at the counter" but "Where's Tilly? They are at the counter".

I get what you're saying, and I understand what you're describing, but for me that sounds perfectly natural.

I have to admit, it's quite strange to put it into words and it's very much an unconscious thing. From *my* point of understanding, it's almost as though you have already identified that the subject of the conversation is 'Tilly' and having done that, you're assuming that the person you're addressing knows who or what Tilly is - and thus I don't need to expend precious brain power on specifying their gender-specific pronoun - or that they don't know, and thus it doesn't matter. The key parts of the sentence are 'Tilly' and 'Counter'; figure out the rest for yourself, kind of thing.

I suppose, more than pronunciation, it's a matter of emphasis which - between American and British speech - can be quite strange. There's a guy on youtube who goes by the handle of lindybeige, and he demonstrates this phenomenon in a video called "The problem with Americeris...."

[Keltest]

Speaking of Hannalore... was Jeph engaged in the dark art of foreshadowing?

https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=313

Probably? Hanners is specifically identified as said woman in 533, so I have trouble believing it wasn't deliberate.

[The Glyphstone]

Old Hanners with the bright red lipstick looks very strange.

[Mith]

Spoiler: Off Topic Discussion

Show

This is getting us way off-track for this thread, but - yes. As an immigrant, I noticed Canadian English bears a lot more resemblance to US English than British English, especially in spoken form. Somewhat less in writing, however (as in "Americanised").

Re reading, I realize that my post may not have come across the best for tone. I have had discussions about the whole British/Canada/States English subject, and I know a few people that expected a more "British" English from Canada than there actually is. The first part of your post read to me like you expected those similarities to be fairly strong as well. My apologies for bad phrasing.

As a side note, my spelling flip flops between British/American spelling because I get annoyed by all the red lines of the American software that won't permanently change to Canadian spelling.

I'm glad the recent thread topic has brought me around to re reading some of the older comics. I had forgotten how good they were.

[AvatarVecna]

Found this old guest comic. Curvy robots, perish the thought...

[Haven]

What I find very weird is using a plural verb for a single person, and only with the personal pronoun. Like "Tilly is at the counter", "Ask Tilly, who is at the counter" but "Where's Tilly? They are at the counter".

Grammatically speaking, it's the same as singular "you" in taking plural verbs (i.e. "you are at the counter").

I'm mostly just happy to have a nonbinary character who's not a robot or alien or anything. That's still super rare in any medium.

[SaintRidley]

So, looks like Taffy might have originally come into this job for the purposes of being a mole in the company. And now she's with Hanners instead.

[Wraith]

I think that's a joke, possibly by her father but certainly by Jeph.

"...Even if I wanted to" makes it clear that she hasn't any intention of doing anything like that, and if it's only coming up now then it's probably not premeditated either.

Spoiler

Show

As a side note, my spelling flip flops between British/American spelling because I get annoyed by all the red lines of the American software that won't permanently change to Canadian spelling.

Are you posting from a computer? If so, Right Click -> Add to Dictionary will solve your problems, in Firefox and Chrome at least.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Are you posting from a computer? If so, Right Click -> Add to Dictionary will solve your problems, in Firefox and Chrome at least.

Or just switch the dictionary to the British one? That's what I do.

GW

[Mith]

It often switches back on me in my experience. Maybe now that I complained about it it will work fine.

[Ibrinar]

I use chrome now (after firefox annoyed me by killing my session manager and other things with an update) and there you can use more than one dictionary. So I can switch between german and english without annoying red markings. So if you use chrome just set it to both.

[Keltest]

What... what coffee shops do they frequent, exactly?

[Hackman]

And Hannelore is back to saying Taffy. I wonder if that is her or Jeph's mistake since she spent so much time practicing.

[Maryring]

It's a flashback.

[Cazero]

What the... A work environment with explosions makes them wear a sleeveless shirt? Do they want arm burns with their concussive head trauma?
Put a leather jacket.

[Dukkai]

Started binging the archives from one of the links further up the thread, and it strikes me that the economy in QC world seems to be in better shape than our own - or maybe it's just that it's a more upbeat slice-of-life comic rather than a vaguely realistic one. Marten gets hired in what is quite possibly the easiest interview I've ever even heard of (he recognized that the questionnaire was in iambic pentameter), only for that to get topped by Penelope within 20 comics, who walked into Coffee Of Doom looking for a drink, and walked out with a job she neither wanted nor needed. I wish I got random job offers thrown at me when I walk into places throughout the day.

well, if you look at this comic where they are talking about a misplaced decimal point (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1458), it would seem that Faye's salary is either six thousand five hundred dollars or six hundred and fifty dollars. I would assume the latter.

[Lethologica]

well, if you look at this comic where they are talking about a misplaced decimal point (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1458), it would seem that Faye's salary is either six thousand five hundred dollars or six hundred and fifty dollars. I would assume the latter.

$650 on a biweekly basis for a full-time hourly job is roughly minimum wage ($8 and a bit), modulo local/state regulations. Makes sense.

[Traab]

$650 on a biweekly basis for a full-time hourly job is roughly minimum wage ($8 and a bit), modulo local/state regulations. Makes sense.

Not sure when that comic came out but minimum wage in OUR Mass was $9 in 2015, its 11 now. Not that it has to apply, this is a world with ai and such after all.

[Max_Killjoy]

Old Hanners with the bright red lipstick looks very strange.

https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=515

Is she doing what I think she's doing there?

Did I totally forget that part of her character?

Does that not just seem totally out of character for her?

[Wraith]

What... what coffee shops do they frequent, exactly?

I can't tell if the joke is that Tilly is a dork, or that the joke is they heard "coffee shop attire" and immediately thought "ridiculous looking hipster".

I mean, they're not necessarily wrong.....

[John Cribati]

https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=515

Is she doing what I think she's doing there?

Did I totally forget that part of her character?

Does that not just seem totally out of character for her?

The official explanation for any Out Of Character Hanners Moment seems to be "it depends on whatever anxiety meds she was on at the time."

[Shadow of the Sun]

The official explanation for any Out Of Character Hanners Moment seems to be "it depends on whatever anxiety meds she was on at the time."

As someone who's been on a lot of anxiety meds, that is actually pretty damn plausible.

[AvatarVecna]

https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=515

Is she doing what I think she's doing there?

Did I totally forget that part of her character?

Does that not just seem totally out of character for her?

Still on my QC binge, and passed a couple comics where it got mentioned. The explanation amounts to "you have no idea how high I was on prescription medication at that time".

[Traab]

And tilly is starting to act like a good pa now. Of course, the real problem is, normally you get a pa when you are too busy being the ceo of a company or whatever to take care of your normal stuff. So you hire someone to handle the errands and keep things organized. Hanners isnt THAT busy afaik, so if this keeps up she may just end up super bored.

[Dukkai]

And tilly is starting to act like a good pa now. Of course, the real problem is, normally you get a pa when you are too busy being the ceo of a company or whatever to take care of your normal stuff. So you hire someone to handle the errands and keep things organized. Hanners isnt THAT busy afaik, so if this keeps up she may just end up super bored.

so, what you are saying is, Taffy is actually a needless character? :D

[John Cribati]

I mean it was already discussed within the story that Hannelore doesnt need a PA, and Tilly is just there because Momma Ellicott-Chatham put her there, so why are you treating this as a surprise?

[Dukkai]

I mean it was already discussed within the story that Hannelore doesnt need a PA, and Tilly is just there because Momma Ellicott-Chatham put her there, so why are you treating this as a surprise?

because Momma Ellicott-Chatham didn't put her there, rather the artist did, for his own reasons.

After going through the archives over the last few days, I am now more certain then ever that it seems that Jeph's inspiration or creativity has waned over the years and/or is on decline. Because, this story arc is just ridiculous. There are numerous paths story could have proceeded to create content (one example is the band, lots of possibilities there), instead we get this half-assed attempt of introducing a character that is neither interesting or special other then being a member of a sexual minority. :shrugs:

Yes, there were more or less interesting characters over the years but out of the last 10 or so characters, maybe one or two are on par with the "original" cast.

[Yana]

Out of all the characters that've been introduced in the last two years or so, I feel that only Bubbles has been interesting from a character standpoint. Who else have we gotten in that time? Brun...Renee, and Taffy.

Yes I know Renee was introduced before this time, but she had no characteristics outside of being a Faye Palate swap.

[Max_Killjoy]

What is with that outfit, Tilly?

Also, stop "helping".

[Fawkes]

At this point, all of Jeph's good ideas are robot-related, but he's not committing completely to the sci-fi, so we're stuck with... well, Tilly.