evolution-of-language
Original: evolution-of-language on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man (praying, eyes closed, hands together): Dear God, why did language evolve?
Panel 2:
God (yellow speech bubble): Language was designed by evolution to allow rapid transmission of information on precisely 3 topics: food, sex, hierarchy position.
Panel 3:
Man: What about science? Poetry? Mathematics?
God (yellow speech bubble): Great ways to get yourself food, sex, and hierarchy position.
Panel 4:
God (yellow speech bubble): Admittedly a few perverts take an intrinsic non-sexual interest in beauty itself, but that's just a byproduct. A sort of effluent from the evolutionary sawmill.
Panel 5:
Man (shown in white silhouette against a black background): God, every time we talk I feel worse about myself.
Panel 6:
God (yellow speech bubble against black): That's called clarity, ape.
Votey:
A crude sketch of the man's distressed face. A speech bubble next to him reads: "Ook. Ook."
Man (praying, eyes closed, hands together): Dear God, why did language evolve?
Panel 2:
God (yellow speech bubble): Language was designed by evolution to allow rapid transmission of information on precisely 3 topics: food, sex, hierarchy position.
Panel 3:
Man: What about science? Poetry? Mathematics?
God (yellow speech bubble): Great ways to get yourself food, sex, and hierarchy position.
Panel 4:
God (yellow speech bubble): Admittedly a few perverts take an intrinsic non-sexual interest in beauty itself, but that's just a byproduct. A sort of effluent from the evolutionary sawmill.
Panel 5:
Man (shown in white silhouette against a black background): God, every time we talk I feel worse about myself.
Panel 6:
God (yellow speech bubble against black): That's called clarity, ape.
Votey:
A crude sketch of the man's distressed face. A speech bubble next to him reads: "Ook. Ook."
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A man with dark hair, eyes closed and hands pressed together in prayer, asks, "Dear God, why did language evolve?" God replies via yellow speech bubbles: "Language was designed by evolution to allow rapid transmission of information on precisely 3 topics: food, sex, hierarchy position." The man asks, "What about science? Poetry? Mathematics?" God: "Great ways to get yourself food, sex, and hierarchy position." God adds, "Admittedly a few perverts take an intrinsic non-sexual interest in beauty itself, but that's just a byproduct. A sort of effluent from the evolutionary sawmill." In the fifth panel, the man is reduced to a white silhouette on black, saying, "God, every time we talk I feel worse about myself." In the final panel, only God's yellow speech bubble glows on a black background: "That's called clarity, ape." Votey: a rough doodle of the man's troubled face beside a speech bubble reading "Ook. Ook." - implying he has been reduced to a primitive ape grunting.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.