# Cultural literacy comes from?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 2, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684 "2010-04-02T02:03:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/1 "2010-04-02T02:03:45Z")
At work today, we were talking about my chair. A coworker commented about how I slouch in it, and I answered, “Yes, I’m a rough beast”.
Everybody laughed, including me, and even I knew I’d made some kind of cultural reference but hell if I knew where it came from. I’ve never read Yeats.
I have no idea how I got that reference without knowing it was from “The Second Coming”.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/2 "2010-04-02T02:12:50Z")
I think we are just inundated with all kinds of cultural tidbits by television, newspaper, radio, people around us, who knows where else on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis and seem to just absorb random information without even being aware of it until we all become some kind of idiot-savant Dennis Miller.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/3 "2010-04-02T02:28:42Z")
> [@DCnDC](#):
>
> I think we are just inundated with all kinds of cultural tidbits by television, newspaper, radio, people around us, who knows where else on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis and seem to just absorb random information without even being aware of it until we all become some kind of idiot-savant Dennis Miller.
That makes some sense. I do (or did) absorb, and I was an idiot-savant Dennis Miller in my younger years, albeit a Dennis Miller who knew (and cared) something about baseball, but didn’t care a whit about “He was an ancient mariner, who stoppeth one in ten”.
So, OK, I’m picking that up from somewhere. Why do I know that it’s worth picking up?
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/4 "2010-04-02T02:37:49Z")
I don’t think it’s about what’s “worth” picking up, you just pick up whatever. I’ve never watched “The Hills” or read an “US” magazine, but somehow I know who the hell Heidi Montag is. If _anything_ is not worth knowing, it’s gotta be that.
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### Author:  [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/5 "2010-04-02T03:01:15Z")
Someone who did know what it means said it, and it caught your ear. My 9 year old is running around saying: “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!”. She got it from a friend at school, who got it from an online Yugioh parody, the creator of which probably knows the album it comes from.
I think lots of people wouldn’t know the ‘rough beast’. We did that poem at school and I didn’t even recognise it at first. But it’s a nice turn of phrase.
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### Author:  [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/6 "2010-04-02T03:11:02Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> At work today, we were talking about my chair. A coworker commented about how I slouch in it, and I answered, “Yes, I’m a rough beast”.
>
> **Everybody laughed, including me,** and even I knew I’d made some kind of cultural reference but hell if I knew where it came from. I’ve never read Yeats.
Nothing to add, really. I’m just wondering what it’s like working at the Algonquin?
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### Author:  [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/7 "2010-04-02T14:59:00Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> “He was an ancient mariner, who stoppeth one in ten”.
>
> So, OK, I’m picking that up from somewhere. Why do I know that it’s worth picking up?
If the above is the phrase you’re “picking up,” I think the line is " . . . stoppeth one of three."
“By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stoppest thou me?”
I think I had to memorize that whole darn thing in ninth grade.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/8 "2010-04-02T15:06:56Z")
You know where it starts? Fucking Sesame Street. Seriously. Watch it sometime, and you’ll see all kinds of little things in there- bits of foreign languages, cultural references, all kinds of stuff. I wonder how much of my assimilation was made easier because of Sesame Street!
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### Author:  [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2010, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/9 "2010-04-03T13:45:45Z")
In my town we have a couple of Museums. One is a Children’s Museum. When my children were growing up I would take them and their friends to Boston. I took them to Theater, The Museum Of Art, The Science Museum, The Aquarium. We went to Plymouth Plantation, The Salem witch Trials, Shows at the Music Hall, The Opera. My kids and their friends sucked it up. It was also a blast for me. I will always fondly remember our day and weekend trips. Hiking Mount Washington, swimming alongside the Kangamangus Hwy. Just get in the car and go make a memory. I also always played all kinds of music and they are both diverse in this area. You hate what your parents listened to until you grow up and can appreciate it.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/10 "2010-04-03T22:04:26Z")
I can’t tell where the OP picked up THAT particular quote, but pop culture and cartoons are LOADED with joking allusions to the classics.
Kids who’ve never heard Wagner still hum “Ride of the Valkyries,” thinking the title is “Kill the Wabbit.”
I’ve used the phrase “Iron bars do not a prison make,” because Bugs Bunny used it. I’m told that’s a misquote, but who really knows, since no one reads the poem being (mis)quoted any more?
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/11 "2010-04-04T01:42:47Z")
> [@Gestalt](#):
>
> If the above is the phrase you’re “picking up,” I think the line is " . . . stoppeth one of three."
>
> “By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stoppest thou me?”
>
> I think I had to memorize that whole darn thing in ninth grade.
Thanks! I’m slightly more literate now.
I was, some time ago, corrected that “water, water, every where, / and not a drop to drink,” was actually “water, water, every where, / nor any drop to drink.” At this rate, I should be well prepared to entertain my comrades in the nursing home with an accurate rendition of the poem by . . . oh, say . . . 2038.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/12 "2013-10-04T15:43:12Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> I can’t tell where the OP picked up THAT particular quote, but pop culture and cartoons are LOADED with joking allusions to the classics.
> …
Some classic childrens’ books are also replete with allusions to what were even then classics. One good example is _Anne of Green Gables_ - it’s packed cover to cover with allusions to Arthurian and Scottish works and Celtic culture in general. Some of the works kind of obviously referenced are Rob Roy, The Idylls of the King, Marmion, and The Vision of Sir Launfal.
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### Author:  [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/13 "2013-10-04T16:41:16Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> That makes some sense. I do (or did) absorb, and I was an idiot-savant Dennis Miller in my younger years, albeit a Dennis Miller who knew (and cared) something about baseball, but didn’t care a whit about “He was an ancient mariner, who stoppeth one in ten”.
>
> So, OK, I’m picking that up from somewhere. Why do I know that it’s worth picking up?
I think the operative part of your statement is “knew (and cared) something about baseball”
From the Baseball Library web site about [Dick Stuart](http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Dick_Stuart_1932):
> [@](#):
>
> Unfortunately for the slugging Stuart, he played before the advent of the designated hitter. Known as Dr. Strangeglove, and The Ancient Mariner (“he stoppeth one in three”), he was perennially the league’s worst-fielding first baseman.
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/14 "2013-10-04T17:05:06Z")
I’m doing war poetry with one of my students, and she (Dutch girl, aged 17) knew the line “To you from failing hands we throw; This torch…” I asked her if she knew what she recognised it from, but she wasn’t sure. Some kind of osmosis, I s’pose.
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### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/15 "2013-10-04T17:16:01Z")
Memes did not begin with the advent of easily captioned and shared image files. When people encounter striking images, powerful turns of phrase, or pithy insights, they tend to re-use them; if someone else has already created a response that expresses precisely what you want to express, and does it better than you could on the spur of the moment, why not use it? It facilitates communication. Thus, such things become embedded in the culture by reference, as well as by direct exposure. The ones that carry meaning best are the strongest, and they survive and are passed on, so that people who have only encountered them third-hand use them as well. They become part of our greater vocabulary: the lexicon of imagery and phrase that communicates more than the words of which they are composed.
Of course, once a new “word” enters the vocabulary, it can be put to new uses…like making jokes.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-literacy-comes-from/534684/16 "2013-10-04T19:21:10Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> I’ve used the phrase “Iron bars do not a prison make,” because Bugs Bunny used it. I’m told that’s a misquote, but who really knows, since no one reads the poem being (mis)quoted any more?
It’s “[Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Althea,_From_Prison)” and some people may know it because some folkies set it to music.