Winter
Winter
[Cueball and Beret Guy, Cueball in a winter hat and Beret Guy in a beret, are walking through snow and across a patch of ice.] Beret Guy: The sky is cold and the floor water is too hard to drink.
[Beret Guy looks upwards.] Beret Guy: But I have my handcoats and the spacelight is warm.
[Beret Guy and Cueball continue on through woods; there are musical notes coming from the trees.]
Beret Guy: Listen—the flappy planes are beeping in the stick towers.
[Cueball pauses.] Cueball: Those are all the wrong words for those things. [Beret Guy replies from off panel.] Beret Guy: Maybe—but the things themselves are all right. So who cares?
[Cueball continues walking, with sunlight and musical notes above.]

Beret Guy and Cueball are walking. Beret Guy is making several remarks about the situation. The air is cold, the puddles have frozen, he has mittens, the sunlight is warm, and the birds are chirping in the trees. When making these observations, however, he does not use the conventional terms. Instead he uses word compounds, similar to " Up Goer Five ". When Cueball brings up Beret Guy's odd vocabulary, he retorts by declaring that the name does not matter, as long as the things themselves are what they should be. This is the same concept that is communicated in the line from the Shakespearean play, "Romeo and Juliet": "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ." The concept is similar to that discussed by Richard Feynman as the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
In the title text Beret Guy continues to use playful language and offers affectionate encouragement: "stay warm, little flappers", demonstrating that his intentions are kind, not obfuscatory. Additionally, it is an indirect salutation from Randall Munroe to the readers, acknowledging the remarkably cold temperatures North America was experiencing at the time.
Strange synonyms are also found in 919: Tween Bromance and 2352: Synonym Date .
[Cueball and Beret Guy, Cueball in a winter hat and Beret Guy in a beret, are walking through snow and across a patch of ice.] Beret Guy: The sky is cold and the floor water is too hard to drink.
[Beret Guy looks upwards.] Beret Guy: But I have my handcoats and the spacelight is warm.
[Beret Guy and Cueball continue on through woods; there are musical notes coming from the trees.]
Beret Guy: Listen—the flappy planes are beeping in the stick towers.
[Cueball pauses.] Cueball: Those are all the wrong words for those things. [Beret Guy replies from off panel.] Beret Guy: Maybe—but the things themselves are all right. So who cares?
[Cueball continues walking, with sunlight and musical notes above.]
