XKCD: It's more than a comic

To be fair, it's entirely likely the creature isn't antagonistic, but just very, very shy.

http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Fblthp

Beret guy strikes again

Also, he's contagious.

edited 28th Sep '15 2:26:36 AM by C105

I'm almost missing the joke here.

I don't remember the Star Wars scene in enough detail to have an opinion on that.

But the joke is just that "any questions" is being interpreted to be about anything at all, rather than on the topic of the press conference.

I think those dudes hassling Luke were just drunk jerks.

I think the reason for that scene is to show what a Wretched Hive that place is.

It's still weird that Star Wars society is based on every single person knowing every language but only speaking their own. I guess that might be the only way to accommodate alien vocal chords though.

edited 28th Sep '15 6:20:19 AM by Clarste

? They all speak common. Space-English

No, the aliens often speak their own languages with subtitles, and R 2 D 2 speaks entirely in beeps that Luke can understand. Oh yeah, Chewbacca doesn't speak English either but he gets along with Han fine.

edited 28th Sep '15 7:00:43 AM by Clarste

Alright, most speak or understand common. Its relatively rare, especially in the core worlds, to find someone who can't understand it.

Humans tend to speak Common. Other creatures speak their own languages, presumably because they are unable to speak human. Or they can, but just refuse to do so, as in the case of Jabba.

It's all the narrativium in the air.

As noted, even if all the aliens understand Basic, they don't all speak it, meaning that anyone wishing to communicate effectively must also understand a whole bunch of other languages. In the Star Wars universe, it's a wonder that having a protocol droid isn't a necessity for day to day life for almost everyone.

That's what C3-PO's for!

edited 28th Sep '15 9:31:06 AM by Xopher001

Clearly they just need those universal translators in their ears that the Star Trek folk have.

Then again, maybe they do have them installed, and Artoo/Chewie/Jabba still speak non-English for the same reason that Klingons occasionally are still heard speaking tlhIngan Hol.

Maybe people in the Star Wars universe are just usually raised to be polylingual?

That is fairly likely, but even the most prolific polyglot could not hope to learn even a small fraction of the galaxy's six million forms of communication. One imagines that there would be a kind of parochialism involved within each system and/or jurisdiction.

Moments of Inspiration. The Darwin one is weird.

This is one of the best XKCDs in a while. The best part is, it's probably true. (Especially the ones about Darwin and Einstein.)

You... You think Darwin really had an encounter with beaked children?

Of course not. Darwin fathered beaked children.

The one with Einstein is my favourite. It also explains why Newton did not come up with the theory of relativity: there were no trains then.

I was joking. I do get the joke in the comic.