OP is clearly ignorant of bygone popular culture. Up till the rock era, anyway, many pop songs referenced the Moon directly, usually in terms of its appearance in the night sky and the quality of its light (a phenomenon much less apparent since street lighting became universal).
It might be that people who came of age in the 1950s and later were comparatively ignorant of the Moon due to the lack of rock songs referring to it. People who came of age before this period are now a demographically insignificant group, so the OP’s posing the question is perhaps excusable, although it betrays a very limited degree of intellectual curiosity.
I was in space in June 1969, but decided to visit Mars instead, thinking I could just visit the moon next time. Then they moved the whole thing to a sound stage in California and made it off-limits. I should have visited when I had that chance.
At the risk of being a sucker for a huge whoosh here…
I am flabbergasted that anyone who got through, say, 3rd grade would not know what the moon was. In first grade the teacher used an orbiter model (akin to this) to teach us about the relative motion of the moon and the sun. This was in the late 50’s. If you really were not taught that in grade school, I’m wondering if you ever heard of George Washington or know what 2+2 equals.
Just curious. I did not know: I think I knew that there was a small rock flying around the Sun, but when people said, “Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto” I a) had no idea that they were referring to a planet and b) had no clear idea what a “planet” was - i.e., how do you define “planet”?
I don’t think that I’m that unusual in that. Now that they’re so famous, I think people assume that everyone always knew what they were - but I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
(People who attended public high school either during or before the definition don’t need to reply unless they somehow didn’t always trust what their teachers told them.)
I did, but I was the kind of nerdy kid who spent all his time reading about gigantic rocky satellites which orbit a few hundred thousand miles from the earth. I may not be typical in that respect. And no, I had never been there.
Are you honestly confused about the difference between the common French word “même” (meaning ‘same’) and the word “meme”? Like, are you really, honestly, completely unfamiliar with the last thirty years of evolutionary theory – as you’d have to be, if you didn’t actually know the difference?
I signed up because I saw people talking about how smart folks here were but I am feeling awfully confused now. I mean, any high school graduate of normal intelligence would know the difference between these two totally separate things.
Jesus. I tend to think of spelling as the lowest possible standard to judge people by but folks always manage to creep under the lowest possible standards of education, don’t they?
