# ­xkcd thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574 "2020-05-28T00:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 291
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5803 "2026-04-24T16:37:20Z")
I still instinctively hear “I drink your milkshake!” in Borat’s voice (“I drrrreenk your meelkshake!”) because I assumed the first time I saw it that it was a line from _Borat_. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5804 "2026-04-24T16:45:28Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > So what _is_ the most salient cultural reference for the phrase “my wife”? It’s not “Take my wife, please!” ? ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5805 "2026-04-24T16:50:01Z")
The closest equivalent I can think of for “my husband” is _Duck Soup_. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5806 "2026-04-24T16:52:05Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > It’s not “Take my wife, please!” ? I’m not sure if you’re joking, but that joke is from an incident in 1940, and was a common schtick in Youngman’s routine maybe 70 years ago. So no, that’s not the most salient cultural reference for most people. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5807 "2026-04-24T16:53:02Z")
And yet, it’s much more familiar to me than Borat. I never saw the original, but it was a common meme for ages. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5808 "2026-04-24T17:03:51Z")
I’m sure a poll of Dopers would show Henny Youngman is more recognizable than Borat here. But that’s because the Dope is a very skewed sample, not because Randall is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5809 "2026-04-24T18:02:36Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > So what _is_ the most salient cultural reference for the phrase “my wife”? > > It’s not “Take my wife, please!” ? I thought of “My wife, I think I’ll keep her.” Though that may be because that very cringy commercial came up recently on another message board. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5810 "2026-04-24T20:15:52Z")
There is also Monthy Python’s **[wife swapping sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHTanzHW9E)**. - I was here on saturday getting married to a blond girl and I’d like to change please, I would like to get married to this one instead, please. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2026, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5811 "2026-04-24T21:28:36Z")
Yup. Agree on all counts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5812 "2026-04-25T00:38:44Z")
I, also, have never seen Bordt, and never intend to, and my first referent was also “Please, take my wife”. I’ve never actually seen the comedy bit that came from, either, but I’ve seen countless parodies. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5813 "2026-04-25T12:12:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve never actually seen the comedy bit that came from, either, but I’ve seen countless parodies. Same, and i know who Borat is, and didn’t even recognize the name of the comedian. (And thought it was attributed to someone else, who had a show locally about 5 years ago.) That saying was a meme for decades. 🤷‍♀️ ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5814 "2026-04-28T06:40:39Z")
> **[Soniferous Aether](https://xkcd.com/3238/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/soniferous_aether.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/soniferous_aether.png) “Imagine you could ride alongside a sound wave. It would probably be pretty cool, right? We’re putting in a departmental budget request to buy a really fast plane so we can check it out.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5815 "2026-04-28T11:47:42Z")
It’s a legit point that all “common sense” experience of ordinary humans is at the bottom of a gravity well and the bottom of an atmosphere. With occasional forays into the top of a water column. All of which are very rare and unusual circumstances in the universe at large. Which leads to all sorts of failures of intuition about that larger universe. That’s where nice folks like @Chronos earn their crust teaching kids all the ways their intuition is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5816 "2026-04-28T12:02:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’s a legit point that all “common sense” experience of ordinary humans is at the bottom of a gravity well and the bottom of an atmosphere. With occasional forays into the top of a water column. So true. “Standard” in “STP” does an immense amount of lifting. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5817 "2026-04-28T12:49:18Z")
Imagine how much fun it would be correcting intuition if we lived on a body that rotated fast enough that Coriolis effects would affect ordinary daily life. Like to throw a baseball from one base to the next you had to aim well left or right. Depending on the orientation of the baseline to the direction of planetary rotation. So each of the 4 possible base-to-next-base throws needed different offsets left or right. Cross-diamond throws would be different yet again. As would be all the offsets needed in ballparks at different latitudes. Or at the same latitude but different orientation to the cardinal directions. Decent bet pro parks would be standardized so e.g. the pitcher’s mound to home plate line is due East to take Coriolis out of pitching at least. We’re already used to having to aim up to account for gravity, but at least that’s uniform (enough) in intensity and direction worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5818 "2026-04-28T13:13:18Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Imagine how much fun it would be correcting intuition if we lived on a body that rotated fast enough that Coriolis effects would affect ordinary daily life. We probably would have figured out we live on a rotating ball a lot sooner. 🌐 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5819 "2026-04-28T13:30:16Z")
The only thing more contorted than Coriolis-infested baseball would be the flerther’s attempts to reconcile Coriolis’ actual behavior to how it’d work on their discworld model. 🤪 ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5820 "2026-04-28T16:15:01Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’s a legit point that all “common sense” experience of ordinary humans is at the bottom of a gravity well and the bottom of an atmosphere. With occasional forays into the top of a water column. > > All of which are very rare and unusual circumstances in the universe at large. Which leads to all sorts of failures of intuition about that larger universe. One big one is that we live in an environment dominated by friction. As a result we intuitively measure “how hard to get to” in terms of distance. In space “how hard to get to” is dominated by delta-V, velocity change. Something a million kilometers away in space can be easier to get to than the miniscule distance between the Earth’s surface and low Earth orbit. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Imagine how much fun it would be correcting intuition if we lived on a body that rotated fast enough that Coriolis effects would affect ordinary daily life. Like any of the fictional settings aboard large rotating space habitats. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5821 "2026-04-28T17:13:23Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@tracer](#): > > > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > > > So what _is_ the most salient cultural reference for the phrase “my wife”? > > > > It’s not “Take my wife, please!” ? > > I thought of “My wife, I think I’ll keep her.” > > Though that may be because that very cringy commercial came up recently on another message board. Am I the only one whose first thought was the song by The Who? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/5822 "2026-04-28T22:28:58Z")
For some reason, although I certainly never saw the Borat movie (and am certainly old enough to be familiar with the Henny Youngman bit), I had exactly the reaction that Randall anticipated - I heard “my wife” in Borat’s voice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=290) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=292)