Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 August 27

= August 27 =

Incel vs excel
I don't get this joke. If I infer that an excel is supposed to be the opposite of an incel, I still don't get it. Something to do with the Excel spreadsheet? Doesn't help. Commenter says it is geeky, but I'm geeky and still don't get it. Can someone explain? Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 04:23, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Because Excel spreadsheets, if you type some number in, they might assume it's something or another, automatically convert it. So if you put in something that looks like a date format, ie. mm/dd/yy or whatnot, (see ISO date format for more on date formatting) Excel will convert it, even if it wasn't actually a date. Whereas incels, might assume that spending some time with someone was a romantic date when it wasn't because they don't go out much. It's not that funny when you have to explain it. Andre🚐 04:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Especially when the joke is kind of a stretch, using unrelated prefixes. Like the one about con being the opposite of pro, hence the opposite of Progress is Congress. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Courtesy link: incel. 2A00:23C4:570A:601:FDCE:26A1:A97A:C64B (talk) 11:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process." -- Jayron 32 17:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * hahaha, exactly Andre🚐 17:25, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The image is not meant to suggest that excel and incel are opposites. It is a Venn diagram; the blue lune in the middle represents the commonality between the two: both tend to make the "same" incorrect assumption (the same only by relying on two different meanings of the word date). It is a nerdy joke. --Lambiam 16:35, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. Yeah I know what Venn diagrams are and what incels are and what the spreadsheet is, but I didn't know about the date conversion feature in the spreadsheet.  Now I get it, and I do think it was funny.  Heh.  2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 20:42, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I have to say that the follow-up cracked me up more .--Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

A dialog from Henry James
In a lecture from 2015, sociologist Eva Illouz incidentally mentions a dialog from one of Henry James' novels, in which one (presumably female) character gets another (presumably male) to justifie his love for her, to which she replies that, had his love been true, he wouldn't have been able to answer so astutely. From which of James' work would that be, if any? 2A01:E0A:59A:3010:7948:B676:9137:15A2 (talk) 17:03, 27 August 2022 (UTC)