
“Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?” - Gigablah
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/395382/which-word-begins-with-y-and-looks-like-an-axe-in-this-picture
======
peterkelly
This reminds me of the scene in Silicon Valley where Peter Gregory notices the
popularity of Burger King, the number of sesame seeds they use, and remembers
that sesame seeds only grow in Myanmar, Brazil, and Indonesia - the former two
of which have large Cicada populations that emerge at different times. After
some research, he finds that this is about to occur simultaneously in both
countries for the first time in a couple of centuries. Apparently Indonesia
doesn't have cicadas, so he purchases some surprisingly cheap Indonesian
sesame seed futures based on the expectation that the price will spike next
year.

Whoever did the detective work in the top answer to this article should get
into investing, if they aren't already.

~~~
pouetpouet
which episode?

~~~
rkuykendall-com
The pilot.

~~~
teirce
It's not the pilot, but it's definitely in the first few episodes.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Oh sorry, thanks for the correction, I really did confidently believe it was
the final scene in the pilot for some reason. Wish I could delete my comment.

------
CJefferson
This is the kind of deep investigation of a super specific issue I always
enjoy reading. This is what I thought the internet would be, 20 years ago.

~~~
sp332
It's a sign of a "cognitive surplus", because we have more educated people now
than we have jobs for them to do. Also it's a sign of how these sites get
people to work for them for free, and concentrate huge amounts of other
people's work for their own benefit. This poster got nothing for all that
work, but SE still gets advertising revenue driven by interest in the content.

~~~
logicallee
another example that there is not enough work to go around is that if you go
into any downtown anywhere in the world at 7 pm to 8 p.m. you will see people
drinking beer in bars.

These same people could still be working, since there is no reason they
shouldn't be in an office, factory, etc, for a full 14-hour workday. Clearly
there is just not enough work to go around, which manifests itself as people
sitting around drinking or going on fun Internet sleuthing that nobody would
mistake for work.

(well, except that one guy.)

~~~
sp332
I'm not arguing from first principles here. Workforce participation is down.
This is just a symptom. I'm not against having free time, but against
companies who ask you to work for them for free. If people had the ability to
make money with their time and effort, that guy would be more likely to be
paid for his post.

~~~
beaconstudios
SE provides a venue for these types of discussions, and in exchange does a
small amount of advertising to make the venture profitable. How is that
exploitative in any sense of the word? Do you have the same attitude towards
social clubs that charge fees?

~~~
sp332
I don't go to SE for the "venue". I usually get there via a Google search,
which means the only draw is the content. And hopefully Google would give me
the same info if it were on any other site that paid their writers.

~~~
beaconstudios
you don't go for the venue, but others do - the asker and the answerer who
generated the content in the first place. You're just getting the benefit of
their exchange due to SE's existence. I don't understand why you have an issue
with SE hosting content in exchange for permission to advertise on it. I have
to pay amazon/digitalocean to host my content - if it costs something for a
host to provide it then they can either make the money back somehow or
constantly lose money.

~~~
sp332
But the only thing SE has to offer is other people's content. And I don't have
a problem with them making money, but with not sharing any with the people who
are the reason the site gets money. They're not even middlemen who take a cut,
they're getting 100% of the revenue.

~~~
beaconstudios
but that implies that content is the only valuable thing, and distribution and
hosting are negligible. If anything, it's the other way around - content is
abundant and quality distribution is the hard problem. That's the reason the
marketing industry is one of the largest around.

If people want to try to make money from their Q&As they can post them on
their own site and either charge for access or advertise, but then they'll
need to market it to get revenue so then they become like an SE but only for
their own content and they'll make very little money anyway. That's basically
the position of a professional blogger and very few of those make any real
money.

~~~
sp332
Right, that's pretty much my whole point. Money gets concentrated. Employment
is low.

~~~
beaconstudios
yeah - people who provide services become successful. It's a pretty good
system as long as we can keep the less successful people out of poverty.
Equality of outcome is possibly the worst idea in history.

~~~
sp332
But we're not keeping them out of poverty. Facebook has a homeless encampment
directly across the street. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/mar/31/facebook-cam...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/mar/31/facebook-campus-homeless-tent-city-menlo-park-california) Are
you in favor of any kind of equality?

~~~
beaconstudios
of course - equality under the law. People like to act like equality of
outcome is a natural extension from legal equality but it simply isn't.

I know we don't keep people out of poverty right now, and that's something
that needs to be fixed. But if you think equality of outcome (i.e. eliminating
economic disparity) is the solution to that then you may want to read up on
the USSR and Maoist China. Capitalism is pretty good at raising the living
standard of the whole population, even if it does end up creating billionaires
at the same time.

~~~
sp332
I'm in favor of democracy. I think the government should represent each
person's interests equally no matter how rich they are. I think the only
reason we didn't have a violent worker's revolution in America is that we were
able to pass the socialist platform democratically.

~~~
beaconstudios
welfare existed long before socialism and is pretty distinct. Systems of
welfare were passed democratically, as they should be. The main reason the
West in general didn't have any worker's revolutions (excluding Spain) is that
the capitalism+welfare situation we have actually works really well.

------
armandososa
A long time ago I worked as a "designer" for somebody who owned a chain of
medium retail stores in Mexico and a also biggish printshop. When there was a
(printed) product was selling very well, he would go to me and ask me to make
one as similar as possible so he can manufacture it and get more of the
profits.

He did it all the time and didn't care at all for the quality of the product.
At first I tried to make the illustrations myself or actually try to do an
original spin on the product, but he put pressure to just pull a clip art and
call it a day.

Some times I tried to hide some in-jokes or innappropiate stuff just to see if
anybody noticed. For example, he once got me to to copy a whole book on some
catholic saint, on a hurry, and refuse to pay some one to proff-read it. So I
intentionally replaced some words here and there to change the meaning and I
even changed the name of the saint to "Batman" in the middle of the book.
Nobody ever noticed.

So my guess is that whoever designed this ball is on a similar situation and
did put even less effort into doing it, than whoever has the third top answer
in the Stackoverflow post. Or maybe she even put a swedish axe just to see if
anybody would notice.

------
Luc
The top answer is a picture of the use of Yxa in a Swedish alphabet learning
book, yet there's still people here clinging to the yellow paint tube theory.

Incredible. Not sure what cognitive bias is at play here (or more charitably:
perhaps they didn't scroll down).

EDIT: Some say these are pictures of a paint tube and some yellow paint:
[https://jimthechairmaker.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/my-
carving...](https://jimthechairmaker.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/my-carving-axe/)

The fact that an axe is used in the exact same way in the Swedish book is very
strong evidence. There's prior art.

~~~
Latty
That top answer is hardly conclusive - it's definitely a possibility, but
given the weird choices in the art for the "axe" (bendy handle, not a defined
edge at the bottom) - I buy it could have been a yellow paint tube.

Nouns beginning with Y are not exactly easy to come across (the official "Yo-
Yo" is hardly as common as the other words on the ball), and as has been
pointed out, it's entirely possible the art was worked on by multiple people
and changed or whatever.

Maybe the wrong-language thing is more likely (the U-boat choice is the thing
that makes me lean this way the most), but I don't think the yellow paint tube
idea is completely impossible.

~~~
jack9
> I buy it could have been a yellow paint tube.

I don't know how anyone would come to that conclusion. It's "definitely not
possibly" (adverb chaining, really?) a tube squirting yellow in image. If
ascribing modern symbolism to images rather than what's portrayed plainly,
there's no reason that any of the images are symbolic of words starting with
the appropriate letters.

~~~
Latty
I mean, it's clearly not a well designed piece, otherwise this whole
discussion wouldn't be here.

I could easily say "no one would ever draw an axe with a bendy handle". The
intent is obviously unclear given all this discussion.

[http://www.myiconfinder.com/uploads/iconsets/256-256-77393dd...](http://www.myiconfinder.com/uploads/iconsets/256-256-77393dd836ed2cb4f04c8af2a03f9818.png)

A paint tube for colour is an icon that exists and gets used. The
representation on the ball isn't far enough off I would rule it out.

------
louprado
Assuming this was made in China, there are two sources of confusion that could
lead to this mix up.

1\. The letter 'A' and an upside down Y-shaped character share the same key on
a Chinese/English key board. This could lead to an unintended subconscious
relationship between these symbol shapes.[1]

2\. The orientation of these characters abruptly changed on the ball graphic
between W and Q, leaving the orientation of the Y-shaped letter unclear to
someone with minimal familiarity of Latin letters. An upside down Y is also
easy to confuse with the letter A if you are not familiar.

This all assumes that Axe was the first common-'A' word selected. Perhaps they
postponed the choice of the common-'Y' word given it is challenging. After
misattributing Y for A, then someone just added an Apple graphic.

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/St...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Standard_Taiwanese_Keyboard_Layout.svg/420px-
Standard_Taiwanese_Keyboard_Layout.svg.png)

~~~
louprado
⅄xe

------
thedrake
I found the BALL manufacturer!!!! [https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Alphabets-print-ball_...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Alphabets-print-ball_573748097.html) (not able to comment on the
original thread on the page bc I do not have the 50 points needed. Pls post a
link there to further the discovery)

~~~
kochb
Posted as a comment on the main answer:
[https://english.stackexchange.com/a/395385/63201](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/395385/63201)

~~~
Ajedi32
Direct link to the comment:
[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/395382/which-
wor...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/395382/which-word-begins-
with-y-and-looks-like-an-axe-in-this-picture/395385#comment941032_395385) (For
future reference, you can get that link by clicking the timestamp next to the
comment.)

------
magic_beans
This was such a delightful read. A quote from the wonderful Okja recently
released on Netflix: "Never mistranslate!"... unless you make balls for
toddlers!

~~~
johan_larson
In fairness, there aren't a lot of good choices for Y.

year yell yacht yellow yearling yeti yoga

I'd probably go with yoga, myself.

~~~
SamBam
Looking at posters online, I find the most common, in order, are Yo-Yo, Yacht,
Yak, and Yellow.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
Why not a yatagan?

~~~
johan_larson
Too obscure.

------
Udik
You look at the axe and wonder: "why?" :)

------
yuleanswer
Yule. For Yuletide

~~~
coldpie
I'm thrilled that you created an account to post specifically this comment. It
is, indeed, a yule answer.

------
ninjakeyboard
Tube of paint squeezing out some yellow sounds reasonable.

~~~
metaphor
25 physical. 1 abstract. Internet throws Occam's razor out the window.

~~~
nomgal
25 English, 1 Swedish.

I see no harm in overthinking things considering the subject is rather
amusing. I see an axe.

~~~
ComputerGuru
U-Boat instead of submarine makes that 24 to 2, rather.

No one this side of WWII uses the term U-Boat in America. U is much more
commonly associated with Umbrella in kids' books here.

~~~
nomgal
Agreed. I actually considered pointing out that in my original comment.

As an American with a fascination in documentaries I have heard the term a lot
but most consider it to be very specific to military submarines operated by
Germany in the first and second world wars only. I suppose the term
Unterseeboot still sees usage outside of the States these days.

------
ryan606
One of the best guerilla marketing tactics I've seen in a while.

~~~
emodendroket
Yep, those Chinese bootleggers of a Swedish children's toy are gonna be
rolling in it.

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rplnt
I thought the Worm was a Maggot.

~~~
eyeownyde
My initial impression was mealworm.

------
raldi
Now let's see if we can solve one of /r/whatisthisthing's most longstanding
mysteries: What does the J stand for on this blanket?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/58o43m/hel...](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/58o43m/help_what_does_j_stand_for/)

~~~
just4themoney
What is N?

~~~
raldi
nest

------
rdiddly
Happily I see that my pet theory involving yaks is represented in the answers;
I can now go back to work.

------
saimiam
"Y? You Axe..."

------
awesomebing1
I've always found English SE to be interesting, because it varies between
questions like this with extremely well thought up answers and questions that
are so-so.

------
jessaustin
We've all been trolled by a toy artist...

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wallabie
It may still be an axe, but with a silent Y in the front. A 'yaxe', if you
will.

------
racl101
Holy schnikes. I'd love to have that much free time ... and powers of insight.

------
flipcoder
Looks like yellow paint being sprayed out of the top of a spray paint can

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thought_alarm
And now, back to my thesis.

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thedrake
SOLVED!!!!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673626)

~~~
danbron
Can you post it again? That link just leads to a comment which says "[dead]".
I'm new to HN. I may be doing something wrong.

------
justinhj
Don't y'all have y'own axes?

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omgbear
yellow brick road? Could be a castle at the end.

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xattt
Yoke?

~~~
emodendroket
Does the picture look anything like a yoke?

------
jbob2000
The answer is one of the top comments:

> Yellow. Looks like a squiggle of yellow oil paint squeezing out of a short,
> fat tube.

~~~
tyingq
Possible, but there's ample evidence around the Yxa (Swedish name for axe)
theory. Even use in a similar context:
[https://i.stack.imgur.com/LNTu2.jpg](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LNTu2.jpg)
[https://i.stack.imgur.com/xzaQ9.jpg](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xzaQ9.jpg) And
it matches the "U" for "U-Boat", which apparently would be more common in
Swedish (Ubåt) to refer to a submarine. It does require you believe whoever
made the ball mixed Swedish and English, which seems possible given that it is
a Chinese knockoff of a Hedstrom product.

~~~
jeltz
"Ubåt" is the most common word for submarine in Swedish, and there is also a
little used longer version "undervattensbåt" which also starts with "U".

