Comments

  1. says

    and they are talking flowers, too! talking before humans were even a twinkle in the almighty’s eye. amazing; they’re yet another missing link!

  5. MtMan900 says

    Bob has been my favorite webcomic for a while now, although I must sadly say his funniness has decreased noticeably since the end of Dogkiller.

    /tear

  6. craig says

    “For those of you late to our show tonight, check out Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.”

    When I was typsetting at a paper, I constantly had to argue with people over one thing – even people who otherwise know better insist on using an apostrophe when pluralizing such things as VCRs and TVs and CDs. You can probably even find some source saying that it’s proper to do this, but I won’t listen!

  8. thwaite says

    Bob couldn’t be immortal – flowers evolved well after the Devonian, apparently in the Jurrasic.

    But even non-Bob flowers may have more emotional (and expoitative) impact on humans than generally realized, according to these evolutionary psychologists:

    Evolutionary Psychology 3: 104-132
    http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep03104132.html
    An Environmental Approach to Positive Emotion: Flowers

    “We suggest that cultivated flowers are rewarding because they have evolved to rapidly induce positive emotion in humans, just as other plants have evolved to induce varying behavioral responses in a wide variety of species leading to the dispersal or propagation of the plants.”

  9. Carlie says

    Isn’t it obvious? See the hungry gleam in the fish-tetrapod’s eye? There were two talking flowers in the Devonian, the damn thing ate them, and then the world had to wait around another two hundred million years or so for flowers to re-evolve, and the next time they couldn’t talk. Pity, really.

  11. Coragyps says

    Doctor Who got it right many years ago – there was an episode where he went to the Devonian (or Ordovician? I don’t remember) and stood on the most astoundingly barren rocky seashore you could imagine.

  12. says

    DarkSyde’s Science Friday claims that all the fish in this sequence lived in rivers, and in fact lobes first evolved as a way of gripping the bottom of the river to help in swimming against the current.

  13. says

    When I was typsetting at a paper, I constantly had to argue with people over one thing – even people who otherwise know better insist on using an apostrophe when pluralizing such things as VCRs and TVs and CDs. You can probably even find some source saying that it’s proper to do this, but I won’t listen!

    Given that it seems to be the prefered usage in general weblandia I expect that it will be the standard form in none to many years. Acronyms *are* relatively new in general language, so some changes are to be expected.

  14. Brian Axsmith says

    Okay – I am a plant nerd and proud of it!

    True flowers may indeed date back only to the Cretaceous, but molecular phylogenies now indicate that the angiosperms and gymnosperms are separate monophyletic groups. This is an amazing finding because conifers are recognizable in the fossil record by the Pennsylvanian. Therefore, the lineage leading to flowering plants must have already diverged by that time. In fact it had to be signicantly before this time as the conifers are not the most primitive of the gymnosperms. Of course that doesn’t mean that these plants were at all like modern angiosperms, but it does indicate that the angiosperm lineage is substantilally older than a literal reading of the record indicates.

  15. says

    Awwwwww! Who knew our tetrapod ancestors were so ADORABLE!

    About apostrophes: it kinda depends on the style (AP, Chicago, APA, etc.) that you’re using. Some go for apostrophes to pluralize acronyms and some don’t. The general rule is that you don’t use apostrophes except with something that, without it, would look like a different word. And, of course, I can’t come up with an example…

  17. says

    Some go for apostrophes to pluralize acronyms and some don’t.
    I was taught that apostrophes were only for possession (e.g. Jack’s notebook)and that plural doesn’t need an apostrophe…

  18. Shyster says

    I admit that this has nothing to do with walking, breathing fish but I’m going to have to sue all of you bastards for racial and ethnic discrimination against the Irish. Bureaucratic computers constantly turn a proud name like “O’Toole” into “Otoole” and “O’Neal” into Oneal.” What the hell is up with that? Please note that there are more important uses for the apostrophe than plurals and grammatical convenience. I need Bob’s address so my lawyer, Seamus O’Epstein, can serve him with papers. I also need the addresses of all of you cultural racists. You will be hearing from Seamus.

  20. Patrick Taylor says

    Actually the cultural racists gave you that apostrophe anyways, using the apostrophe was their way of rendering the Irish Ó in English. So dump that imperialist apostrophe and proudly insist that the bureaucrat type in Alt+0211 (in Windows) and restore your proud name(s). Of course, you really should be spelling O’Toole and O’Neal as Ó Tuathail and Ó Niall …

  21. Shyster says

    Mr. Taylor, Thank you for the information. I was aware of much of your instruction. You realize that your information does not change the facts in my law suit. I will grant you that Irish, not unlike Welsh, often strings vowels and consonants together in an unpronounceable jumble. The old spelling of “O’Toole” is a perfect example. I tried to pronounce all of the letters as spelled and spent two days in the hospital. It may be a reason that both languages are struggling to survive. My concern is the insensitive bureaucrat and the current spelling of Irish names. Wait a minute, isn’t “Taylor” an English name? Will you give us poor people no peace?