A paleo vegan is a pegan! Didn’t make that up. The new staff member is obviously a caveman and judging by the bones obviously not vegan. So I’m not sure if the joke is just that the woman doesn’t know correct definitions for paleo and vegan or what.
I read it as, “Here’s the office of yet another paleo.” She’s vegan as is the newbie she’s showing around.
Of course the humor is from the decor, showing the person is not *just* on the paleo diet.
Arthur’s interpretation makes sense, at least.
Ah, good one Arthur. I bet you’re right. The new staff member is probably the one walking beside her.
I think Arthur has it, but wow is that ambiguous. It sure reads like she’s implying that paleo = vegan, even with all the bones outside the cave.
If they’re vegan, why are they so huge?
My interpretation was Bill’s. The cartoonist thought vegan and paleo were synonyms. Reading Arthur’s I guess that is right. But either way it is *terrible* dialog/joke telling.
I mean the joke is: A paleo dieter = actual caveman. The cartoonist goal is to have the woman say *something* to indicate ther are passing the cubicle of a paleo=caveman. That’s all. And by Occam’s razor the caption that introduces the fewest extraneous concepts is the best.
If Arthur is correct the one unnecessarily introduces, i) a long standing rivalry between vegans and paleo, ii) the woman is a vegan iii) the man is a new hiree iv) the man is a vegan and v) there are several other paleos at the office.
That is *ridiculously* convoluted.
I’m with Arthur on this one. He said exactly what I took from it as well.
I was confused at first, but I expect Arthur is right that the caveman in the office is paleo, and the woman is saying to her walk-mate colleague that it is nice to (finally) have another vegan on staff (ie him). For a moment, though I couldn’t get it to work, I wondered if she was saying to her walk-mate that 1) the office-dweller was paleo, 2) it is good to have another other vegan on staff (ie, not the walk-mate), but 3) she had not noticed, but the walk-mate had, that the paleo office dweller had eaten the new vegan, whose bones are laid out for us to see. But the dialogue would have had to be different to make that work.
I took it as clueless New Agey blither. The caveman is from paleolithic times, so he’s “paleo,” and to her, “paleo equals vegan” (modern definition), so she assumes all paleolithic cave people were vegan by definition, and she can’t be convinced otherwise even by the bones outside the cave.
Remembers me of a now-deceased New Agey friend who was known to brag that “there were NO chemicals in HER body.”
Obviously something has gone wrong if so many people were confused by the strip, but the wording seems reasonable to me.
I read this the same way as Arthur. The natural meaning of “so” in this context is “that’s why,” and then the sentence doesn’t make any sense if paleo = vegan. You wouldn’t say “He’s British too – that’s why it’s nice to finally have another Brit on staff.”
@ WW – I think what went wrong is just sloppy punctuation. I missed the word “so” when I read the caption for the first time. I think if that weak hyphen had been a nice normal comma, it would encourage more readers to pause and see the “so”.
P.S. I don’t know if it counts as dyslexia if the units are words rather that letters, but twisting “…so it’s…” into “…It’s so…” would produce the confusion that has been happening here.
Thank you Arthur, I had the same problems as everyone else.
Thank you Kilby, Until your post I didn’t realize I was also reversing the “so it’s”.
Looking at this some more, I think what threw me off was the “too”. The only people we have in this comic are the two people and the presumptive caveman. I think there’s an unconscious assumption that “too” must then refer to one of the two people we see, not somebody else off-screen. A second cubicle with bones or something might have cleared this up.
What does she care as long as no one is microwaving seafood?
Also, “He’s paleo too” could mean at first sight “He’s paleo just like you and me and everyone else”; though in fact it means “He’s paleo as well as almost everyone else on the staff except me, who was the sole vegan until you showed up, so thanks for that”. She could have said something more on the lines “And THAT guy’s yet another paleo”.
Comics I Don't Understand 
A paleo vegan is a pegan! Didn’t make that up. The new staff member is obviously a caveman and judging by the bones obviously not vegan. So I’m not sure if the joke is just that the woman doesn’t know correct definitions for paleo and vegan or what.
I read it as, “Here’s the office of yet another paleo.” She’s vegan as is the newbie she’s showing around.
Of course the humor is from the decor, showing the person is not *just* on the paleo diet.
Arthur’s interpretation makes sense, at least.
Ah, good one Arthur. I bet you’re right. The new staff member is probably the one walking beside her.
I think Arthur has it, but wow is that ambiguous. It sure reads like she’s implying that paleo = vegan, even with all the bones outside the cave.
If they’re vegan, why are they so huge?
My interpretation was Bill’s. The cartoonist thought vegan and paleo were synonyms. Reading Arthur’s I guess that is right. But either way it is *terrible* dialog/joke telling.
I mean the joke is: A paleo dieter = actual caveman. The cartoonist goal is to have the woman say *something* to indicate ther are passing the cubicle of a paleo=caveman. That’s all. And by Occam’s razor the caption that introduces the fewest extraneous concepts is the best.
If Arthur is correct the one unnecessarily introduces, i) a long standing rivalry between vegans and paleo, ii) the woman is a vegan iii) the man is a new hiree iv) the man is a vegan and v) there are several other paleos at the office.
That is *ridiculously* convoluted.
I’m with Arthur on this one. He said exactly what I took from it as well.
I was confused at first, but I expect Arthur is right that the caveman in the office is paleo, and the woman is saying to her walk-mate colleague that it is nice to (finally) have another vegan on staff (ie him). For a moment, though I couldn’t get it to work, I wondered if she was saying to her walk-mate that 1) the office-dweller was paleo, 2) it is good to have another other vegan on staff (ie, not the walk-mate), but 3) she had not noticed, but the walk-mate had, that the paleo office dweller had eaten the new vegan, whose bones are laid out for us to see. But the dialogue would have had to be different to make that work.
I took it as clueless New Agey blither. The caveman is from paleolithic times, so he’s “paleo,” and to her, “paleo equals vegan” (modern definition), so she assumes all paleolithic cave people were vegan by definition, and she can’t be convinced otherwise even by the bones outside the cave.
Remembers me of a now-deceased New Agey friend who was known to brag that “there were NO chemicals in HER body.”
Obviously something has gone wrong if so many people were confused by the strip, but the wording seems reasonable to me.
I read this the same way as Arthur. The natural meaning of “so” in this context is “that’s why,” and then the sentence doesn’t make any sense if paleo = vegan. You wouldn’t say “He’s British too – that’s why it’s nice to finally have another Brit on staff.”
@ WW – I think what went wrong is just sloppy punctuation. I missed the word “so” when I read the caption for the first time. I think if that weak hyphen had been a nice normal comma, it would encourage more readers to pause and see the “so”.
P.S. I don’t know if it counts as dyslexia if the units are words rather that letters, but twisting “…so it’s…” into “…It’s so…” would produce the confusion that has been happening here.
Thank you Arthur, I had the same problems as everyone else.
Thank you Kilby, Until your post I didn’t realize I was also reversing the “so it’s”.
Looking at this some more, I think what threw me off was the “too”. The only people we have in this comic are the two people and the presumptive caveman. I think there’s an unconscious assumption that “too” must then refer to one of the two people we see, not somebody else off-screen. A second cubicle with bones or something might have cleared this up.
What does she care as long as no one is microwaving seafood?
Also, “He’s paleo too” could mean at first sight “He’s paleo just like you and me and everyone else”; though in fact it means “He’s paleo as well as almost everyone else on the staff except me, who was the sole vegan until you showed up, so thanks for that”. She could have said something more on the lines “And THAT guy’s yet another paleo”.