This is water.
E1008371
"This Is Water" is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on mindfulness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| This is water. canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T12886154 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: This is water. Context triple: [This Is Water, notableQuote, This is water.]
-
A.
Water
Water is a fundamental chemical substance (H₂O) essential for life, known for its roles in biological processes, climate regulation, and human civilization.
-
B.
Water
"Water" is a gospel-infused hip-hop track by Kanye West from his 2019 album *Jesus Is King*, noted for its minimalist production and spiritual, cleansing-themed lyrics.
-
C.
Water
Water is a 2005 Canadian-Indian drama film by Deepa Mehta that explores the lives and struggles of Hindu widows in 1930s colonial India.
-
D.
H2O
H2O is a 1982 pop-rock album by American duo Daryl Hall & John Oates, featuring hits like "Maneater" that helped cement their commercial peak in the early 1980s.
-
E.
Ice Water
"Ice Water" is a track by Raekwon that exemplifies the gritty, cinematic street narratives and dense wordplay characteristic of mid-1990s Wu-Tang Clan–era hip-hop.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: This is water. Target entity description: "This Is Water" is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on mindfulness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
-
A.
Water
Water is a fundamental chemical substance (H₂O) essential for life, known for its roles in biological processes, climate regulation, and human civilization.
-
B.
Water
"Water" is a gospel-infused hip-hop track by Kanye West from his 2019 album *Jesus Is King*, noted for its minimalist production and spiritual, cleansing-themed lyrics.
-
C.
Water
Water is a 2005 Canadian-Indian drama film by Deepa Mehta that explores the lives and struggles of Hindu widows in 1930s colonial India.
-
D.
H2O
H2O is a 1982 pop-rock album by American duo Daryl Hall & John Oates, featuring hits like "Maneater" that helped cement their commercial peak in the early 1980s.
-
E.
Ice Water
"Ice Water" is a track by Raekwon that exemplifies the gritty, cinematic street narratives and dense wordplay characteristic of mid-1990s Wu-Tang Clan–era hip-hop.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
commencement speech
ⓘ
essay ⓘ |
| audience | Kenyon College graduating class of 2005 ⓘ |
| author | David Foster Wallace NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfFirstDelivery | United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| criticalReception | widely acclaimed ⓘ |
| date | 2005-05-21 ⓘ |
| deliveredAt | Kenyon College NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| deliveredIn | Gambier, Ohio NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| form |
printed booklet
ⓘ
speech ⓘ |
| genre |
commencement address
ⓘ
nonfiction ⓘ philosophical essay ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
audio recording of the speech
ⓘ
video presentations with text and images ⓘ |
| influenced |
discourse on the purpose of education
ⓘ
public discussions of mindfulness in daily life ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
awareness of everyday life
ⓘ
challenges of adult life ⓘ choice of how to think ⓘ compassion ⓘ default settings of the mind ⓘ education and thinking ⓘ empathy ⓘ meaning in ordinary life ⓘ mindfulness ⓘ self-centeredness ⓘ |
| notableQuote |
The capital-T Truth is about life before death.
ⓘ
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline. ⓘ This is water. NERFINISHED ⓘ You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. ⓘ |
| pageCount | 138 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2009 ⓘ |
| publisher | Little, Brown and Company ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Consider the Lobster NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| speaker | David Foster Wallace NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subject |
consciousness
ⓘ
consumer culture ⓘ everyday routine ⓘ higher education ⓘ liberal arts education ⓘ mental habits ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
college graduates
ⓘ
general readers ⓘ |
| workByAuthor | David Foster Wallace NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: This is water. Description of subject: "This Is Water" is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on mindfulness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.