Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a viking!..?

Ralph isn't smart enough to come up with a hipsterish turn of phrase like "being a viking" at some activity. That you're just assuming that the writers all of a sudden decided to retcon his character and have him be smart enough to come up with his very own catchphrase is absurd. He goes to sleep and becomes a viking, that's all he's smart enough to understand.

ARRRRRRRRRRGH

Surely this is a windup?

http://download.lardlad.com/framegrabs/1F08/024.jpg

l-r: b absolutists

Maybe if CHIEF Wiggum said the quote, I could see the differences in opinion, but this is Ralph for God's sake, the dude has a Nerf football where his brain should be. "Being a viking"=excelling? Tell that to Leif Erikson.

you are sleeping
you do not want to be a viking
you are sleeping

if the teacher told Ralph to go to lunch, and he said "oh boy, the cafeteria -- that's where I'm a viking!" or if she told him to go to recess and he said "oh boy, the playground -- that's where I'm a viking!" would you have laughed? would that have made ANY fucking sense to you? really think about this and be honest.

You forget that sleep is both the place Ralph goes to and a verb describing the action (the teacher asks him to sleep). So "the cafeteria - that's where I'm Viking!" is not the equivalent to "sleep - that's where I'm a Viking!". A better equivalent would be "eating - that's where I'm a Viking!", and that would make sense to me exactly like "Viking of sleep" does.

more comparable if he said, "lunch, that's where i'm a viking," because sleep isn't actually the verb. the verb would be 'sleeping, that's where i'm a viking,' to be grammatically correct (i believe?), whereas 'sleep, that's where i'm a viking,' has to be the place he goes. with the cafeteria example it would be, 'lunch, that's where i'm a viking,' where to be a grammatically correct verb it would have to be, 'lunching, that's where i'm a viking,' (ie: parsing it as: i excel at sleeping, over, i excel at sleep)

Tuomas, you must know some Vikings.
Is there an equivalent reverse phrase used by them when a) they fail,AND/OR b) they dream of being Ralph?

(Speaking the unspeakable: how many of the fans of interpretation A are not native speakers of the English language?)

Jeez, people, if you are honestly making the argument of "most people don't do this, so why would Ralph?" then you are missing the entire. fucking. point.

Indeed. I don't quite get the argument that Ralph wouldn't use Viking in the sense of excelling in things, because it's such a weird use of language... Is Ralph really known as a normative user of English?

Ralph isn't smart enough to come up with a hipsterish turn of phrase like "being a viking" at some activity. That you're just assuming that the writers all of a sudden decided to retcon his character and have him be smart enough to come up with his very own catchphrase is absurd. He goes to sleep and becomes a viking, that's all he's smart enough to understand.

First of all, it's not necessarily a "hipsterish turn of phrase", just a weird way of using language - something kids do all the time. Secondly, IIRC there's been at least one episode where Ralph was indeed "retconned" to be surprisingly smart. It's not like Simpsons characters are always super consistent from one episode to another; the writers often just use them to tell jokes, even if the said joke might be somewhat against what the character was like in previous episodes. For example, in the same "Viking" episode it's also established that Lisa becomes a vegetarian, and whereas most later episodes take that for granted, in some episodes she's still shown eating meat. And it's not like Ralph thinking "Viking" means excelling in something requires a huge retconning of his character... Much bigger retcons have been done to other characters - remember the episode where Skinner was revealed to be a fake?

(Speaking the unspeakable: how many of the fans of interpretation A are not native speakers of the English language?)

― Three Word Username, Friday, April 30, 2010 4:18 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think a more pertinent question would be how many A-siders are recent products of the American public school education system, as iirc grammar is simply not taught anymore in schools. I do admit though that I learned English at school and spoke Chinese at home.

just wanted to talk about the word emphasis after watching it on youtube

ralph says "SLEEP! Thats where I'M a VIking" - I used to hear this pattern all the time with my kids, it indicates that they think they are, or at least are pretending to be something ( I'M a RObot, I'M a COOL girl, I'M a MONster ): equal emphasis on I'm and Viking, implying equivalence.

compare that to the metaphorical use, which would usually be "i'm a MONSTER", "i'm a VIKING", ie all the emphasis on the metaphor.

But Ralph's voice isn't done by a real kid rather than an adult.

Also, remember that the teacher has just criticized Ralph for being incompetent, so his line, and the emphasis, is in response for that. He might suck at cutting worms, but at least sleeping is something where HE'S good at.

"in response to that"

part of the joke is that ralph is so dumb/naive that he doesn't even notice the teacher's dismay and instead is just excited that he gets to go to sleep and be a viking again

in which case you would expect the emphasis to be just on the "I'M", not on the "VIking" too. (xp)

Why? It's the same as saying "That's where I'M the BEST!". That doesn't sound like a particularly weird way of emphasizing words.

it's less usual.

But no so unusual that it would make "Viking of Sleep" interpretation ridiculous - if it would really be that unusual, I don't think 35% of people in the poll above would've interpreted the line as excelling in sleep.

When the argument has gone on this long, everybody is wrong.

But seriously, B is the actual answer, and A is just something enough people have misunderstood as a possibility that it's picked up momentum.

If the statement was "Oh boy, sleep! That's how I get to be a viking!" the Dreamers would have a much better case.

seriously? if you were in the writer's room and someone else pitched the line (with the dream meaning) you would suggest that change? smh

part of the joke is that ralph is so dumb/naive that he doesn't even notice the teacher's dismay and instead is just excited that he gets to go to sleep and be a viking again

― Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autoban (Curt1s Stephens), Friday, April 30, 2010 5:04 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah to me this has always been the part of it that's actually funny, and his obliviousness I think is reflected in his intonation and facial expressions.

Also, remember that the teacher has just criticized Ralph for being incompetent, so his line, and the emphasis, is in response for that. He might suck at cutting worms, but at least sleeping is something where HE'S good at.

― Tuomas, 30 April 2010 09:02 (20 minutes

The more obvious and simple link & line is that being a viking is something Ralph enjoys, btw, as opposed to being bad at everything IRL.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/Denied2.gif

^ This too, for all of us. thread is a sinkhole of despair.

i can rescue it, check this out

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/aniPartyTime.gif

that is my summary of this thread so far

still waiting for that to start moving tbh.

Also, remember that the teacher has just criticized Ralph for being incompetent, so his line, and the emphasis, is in response for that. He might suck at cutting worms, but at least sleeping is something where HE'S good at.

― Tuomas, 30 April 2010 09:02 (20 minutes

The more obvious and simple link & line is that being a viking is something Ralph enjoys, btw, as opposed to being bad at everything IRL.

I think Ralph saying he is good at something would be much more directly opposed to the teacher saying he's bad at something. Ralph's line is a direct response to teacher's comment, he even repeats the word "sleep" after she says it. If, like you say, what Ralph means is that he enjoys being a Viking in his dreams, that would not be a direct response to Ms. Hoover's line - enjoying of being a Viking has nothing to do with Ms. Hoover's criticism.

Not a direct response, because the point is that there really is no direct response to somebody telling you to go to sleep.

just wanted to talk about the word emphasis after watching it on youtube

ralph says "SLEEP! Thats where I'M a VIking" - I used to hear this pattern all the time with my kids, it indicates that they think they are, or at least are pretending to be something ( I'M a RObot, I'M a COOL girl, I'M a MONster ): equal emphasis on I'm and Viking, implying equivalence.

compare that to the metaphorical use, which would usually be "i'm a MONSTER", "i'm a VIKING", ie all the emphasis on the metaphor.

― tomofthenest, Friday, April 30, 2010 8:47 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But Ralph's voice isn't done by a real kid rather than an adult.

― Tuomas, Friday, April 30, 2010 8:58 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

brb, committing suicide

we are now basing our theses on the foundations of ralph speaking in norse metaphors, and the voice actor being just the right type of incompetent.

We are?

no what we're doing is checking the pilot light

Anyway, like I said above "That's where I'M the BEST!" is really not a super uncommon way of emphasizing words. As for the comment about the voice actor: all I wanted to say is that just because Tomofthenest has observed his kids saying things in a certain way doesn't meant the actress playing Ralph would say it the same way - it's not like kids in Simpsons always speak like real kids. More importantly, Tomofthenest's examples are not equivalent to what Ralph says. Like I already explained above, the reason he puts emphasis on the "I'M" is because he is answering to Ms. Hoover's criticism.

(x-post)

I thought you died.

Next week- An analysis of the development of the phrase 'Oh My God- They killed Kenny!' through the years, and the effect it has had on national debt.

When Archie tells Edith to stifle herself, why doesn't he just say "shh?" It would take less time and have the same neat meaning & result.

Fonzie's "aaaay": elongated "hey" or primal utterance?

second one

oh hell no son

Multiple xps to dyao re USA public schol.grammar instruction: it's likely that the Simpsons' writing team went through.the same system!

that's unpossible

eh kkvg the simpsons writers were all at least in their 20s when the wrote the episode - I think the decline in the teaching of formal grammar is a pretty recent pedagogical thing? at least that's the impression that I get

I mean, when they went to school, grammar was still probably being taught. and there's no telling how many of them went to private schools either, as it's usually ivy league grads who do the writing for those shows.

anyway who cares what the writers intended when they wrote it - authorial intent is a false north star

it isn't when the question is "what is meant by this joke?"

like the idea that because texts are elusive, what the teller of a joke means by the joke isn't relevant, this is some waste of a critical theory class or two right there