Are they dueling over who gets to carve the turkey? As a kid, I remember some family members actually being a little competitive over doing the honors at the big dinner. I’m not seeing those electric carving knives being used as much as years ago. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
I think Anderson saw an electric knife and noticed the cord running from it. That made him think of the corded swords used in fencing. If so, this is a reasonable comic conflating them.
Arthur has it, though I think the inspiration was probably in the other direction. He saw the fencing foils with the cord to record touches and thought of electric knives.
My knowledge of fencing is about as limited as it gets, but they use corded swords as opposed to something wireless?
@MarkM.
Yes, fencers use electric weapons Touches are detected by a pressure sensor in the tip and registered automatically. At least, that was true back when won my one and only epee trophy.
I believe the question was, “do they still use cords?” The answer seems to be that wireless is becoming available:
For the traditional method, the weapon is attached directly to the fencer’s wrist, and the long (retractable) wire is attached to a clip on the lower edge of the fencer’s vest (in the back). If they used the method shown in the comic, the cord would add so much weight to the weapon that proper fencing would be impossible (not to mention that the fencers would spend too much reaction time in managing the cord, and would probably trip over it in any case).
P.S. @ Brian – Wireless connections would be the obvious solution, but there have been so many cheating attempts using simple wired solutions that it will be interesting to see whether the regulating authorities can agree on a uniform (and verifiable) standard for wireless solutions.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Are they dueling over who gets to carve the turkey? As a kid, I remember some family members actually being a little competitive over doing the honors at the big dinner. I’m not seeing those electric carving knives being used as much as years ago. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
I think Anderson saw an electric knife and noticed the cord running from it. That made him think of the corded swords used in fencing. If so, this is a reasonable comic conflating them.
Arthur has it, though I think the inspiration was probably in the other direction. He saw the fencing foils with the cord to record touches and thought of electric knives.
My knowledge of fencing is about as limited as it gets, but they use corded swords as opposed to something wireless?
@MarkM.
Yes, fencers use electric weapons Touches are detected by a pressure sensor in the tip and registered automatically. At least, that was true back when won my one and only epee trophy.
I believe the question was, “do they still use cords?” The answer seems to be that wireless is becoming available:
https://usa.enpointefencing.com/
For the traditional method, the weapon is attached directly to the fencer’s wrist, and the long (retractable) wire is attached to a clip on the lower edge of the fencer’s vest (in the back). If they used the method shown in the comic, the cord would add so much weight to the weapon that proper fencing would be impossible (not to mention that the fencers would spend too much reaction time in managing the cord, and would probably trip over it in any case).
P.S. @ Brian – Wireless connections would be the obvious solution, but there have been so many cheating attempts using simple wired solutions that it will be interesting to see whether the regulating authorities can agree on a uniform (and verifiable) standard for wireless solutions.
CIDU Bill, ISWYDT, 😊