2011-12-09
Explanation
This comic shows a student talking to a nun (or a teacher at a religious school). The student exclaims: "What!? Technically it's correct!" Below the panel is what appears to be a test question: "1) Write a quotation from Jesus." The student's answer is simply: "Owwww!"
The joke is that the student has answered the question in a technically correct but completely unintended way. The test question asks for a quotation from Jesus, and the expected answer would be something from the Gospels like "Love thy neighbor" or "Blessed are the meek." Instead, the student writes "Owwww!" -- a cry of pain -- which, while never recorded in scripture in that exact form, is something Jesus almost certainly said at some point, given that he was crucified. Being nailed to a cross would definitely elicit an exclamation of pain.
The humor comes from the collision between the teacher's intent (a serious religious studies question) and the student's lateral thinking. The student's defense that it's "technically correct" is the classic refuge of the smart-aleck who knows exactly what was being asked but chose to exploit the ambiguity of the question instead.
The votey adds another layer with a character saying: "Plus, it's in Aramaic," referencing the fact that Jesus historically spoke Aramaic, not English. This implies the student wrote the exclamation in Aramaic on the test, adding another level of "technically correct" pedantry -- the student is arguing that not only is "Owwww" a valid quotation from Jesus, but they even wrote it in Jesus's actual language.