FoxTrot by Bill Amend for January 24, 2010

Okay… is that supposed to be a heart? Most emoticons go the other way; left is “top” :^)

Okay, I read it in proper math language, and why Paige would go berserk over “i is less than three u” didn’t make any sense to me. Thanks. ( Maybe that’s why I never had a girlfriend in high school! )

Brilliant little gag there!

Not “too” but “also”. Nice, geeky touch there.

BigChief:

Why doesn’t she just BLOCK him? Geez…

In my day:

Genius!!!! All I can say is genius :D

I still don’t get it.

Leet language … emoticons … It’s a cute gag, but if not for comments I wouldn’t have got it. Probably I am too old for that kind of language … sigh …

kjhudlow said, 11 minutes ago

I still don’t get it

It’s text-speak for “I love you”. Paige is horrified because Morton (whom she can’t stand) has just tricked her into saying that she loves him.

Good one, Morton! LOL

For the text-speak illiterate:

When you tilt your head to the right, <3 looks like a heart.

jmd4lsu: ” The girlfriends I had wouldn’t have been able to solve it”

In your day, the girls COULD have solved it. They just wouldn’t have let you know they could.

I was a little slow in getting this. I had to have my teenage daughter translate it for me. Easy to tell that I don’t text.

Oh, go for the geek, Paige. Eventually, he’ll be a rich geek and buy you all the clothes you want.

I hate texting. My phone doesn’t have a qwertyuiop keyboard, and I don’t text enough for my parents to get unlimited texting.

Clever!

Go Morton!

I’m a “Foxtrot” fan, have every book that has come out – but this is w-a-a–a-a-a-y out of my league (generation). I’m not into the texting thing either and felt really, really, stupid when I couldn’t figure it out.

Thank you to the readers who could “translate it” for me. I sure wish “Mr. Bill” would publish a few more books — they have been a life-saver to me – no matter how many times I re-read the books I have, they always make me laugh – I really enjoy Jason’s antics, but enjoy everybody’s “role” in this Foxtrot family.

Keep up the great work, and keep on drawing, Mr. Bill.

these always crack me up when the sunday paper comes. i am so using that now :D

i heart or<3 this

Jakebb2:

So I got curious what this ‘xoxo’ tag meant and Googled it.

Turns out that means “hugs and kisses” to the texting kids.

Of course they could have just used “88” which is long standing ham radio code lingo for ‘love and kisses’ but the kids nowadays have to reinvent the wheel every time.

“73” (which means best regards)

BigChiefDesoto:

xoxo goes way back before texting or e-mail to snail mail. My mother always used to use this on letters, at least back into the 1960s. It may not predate the ham codes, but it certainly isn’t something the current kids have invented.

Didn’t know Paige could do math.

LOL ^__^ Oh, Morton, you sly dog!

I think texting is stupid, it’s so much faster to TALK. But what is worse is that cell phone companies charge extra for texting, even though it uses less resources than speech. I had mine turned off saying that I refuse to pay for it. Of course if anyone tries to send me a text message, it will fail silently but too bad.

When a math alpha-geek who loves you calls for help on math, you should know something is up.

Also, I love how the background changes from pink living room with a tv to blueish gray living room with a table.

I think the reason Paige doesn’t block him is that even though she hates it when he bugs her, she kind of likes it, too. It’s sort of a compiment. That said, it depends a lot on whether the guy is creepy or not. Geeky is ok, creepy is not.

I’m a bit surprised that so many people who are commenting on a website are also unfamiliar with texting abbreviations, or the “less than three” representation of the heart symbol! That seems a little incongruous to me. Then again, this is a website dedicated to the online version of traditional print comic strips…I’ve been reading FoxTrot since it started, but I was younger than Jason at the time. (And looked up to him!)

@zerotsm: Texting is great when you don’t want to deal with the inefficiencies of talking to someone on the phone in real time: waiting for the other party to respond, intros/goodbyes, having to focus, etc. Texting is superior when you don’t want to have the conversation in the first place, or if it would introduce more social overhead to really talk. I love talking to people in person, but I hate talking on the phone – I’d much rather text instead. I do agree, however, that it’s unfair that we’re charged for something that essentially costs nothing to provide.

Excellent strip (well played, Mr. Goldthwait!)

Hilarious! Have to show this one to my 12 yr old daughter.

I really hate that text has become a verb. We never say “I am lettering somebody” but it has become appropriate to say “I am texting somebody.” Even my spell checker hates the word.

Bill Amend must have taken quite a distribution of courses at Amherst College - and must have taken the time to keep up with our culture’s stuff ever since.

He’s certainly got his finger on the pulse of three (or more) very different kinds of teenagers, and gets the most out of that by making them siblings. But he also throws advanced math, philosophy, wordplay, etc into strips from time to time. There have been some real mind-stretchers, not to mention a few mind-benders.

But he usually manages to make the abstruse stuff work in tandem with an outright funny - or even a cheap shot - so everyone is entertained. That - and the “A” on the firstborn son’s baseball cap, like any loyal alum would sneak in there at work, whenever possible - makes me smile.

I wouldn’t have seen it coming either. I am very math-minded. Oh, and did I mention my name is Paige?

I’m not terribly fluent in text-speak but, from the context and knowing Paige’s history with Morton, I presumed that she was tricked into some sort of romantic message to Morton. I presumed that ” was a pair of lips, puckering to smooch. The sideways heart thing is lame.

My text response to this comic initially was

0_o?

(Scratching head, trying to understand…)

On Facebook <3 turns into a cute little heart.

In re: a comment above (on “texting” versus “lettering”), nobody said it better than Calvin and Hobbes:

Calvin: Verbing weirds language. Hobbes (paraphrased from memory): At this rate, one day we’ll make language a complete barrier to communication.

I saw this one on another site; had to come here to find out what it meant. Thanks guys. :)

LOL I love it.

The equation that she gives him is wrong if you divide 2i by 2 you would have to flip the less than to a greater than. which makes it read i>3u

How did he even get her number?

Paige, your brother is Jason. You know how his traps work. Why didn’t you figure out this was a trap?

:D

Why don’t u block his number Paige?