# Have you met someone who didn't know a really well-known pop or historical reference?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 22, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658 "2013-03-22T17:57:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 12
### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/221 "2013-03-30T17:58:42Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#):
>
> I am an American, and I am in complete agreement. I don’t know that people refer to “notions” much nowadays, either. I think the next time I go into Wally World, I’ll ask about their dry goods. What’s a little puzzling is that the term seems to be mostly used for clothing and clothing accessories.
> […]
Actually, what I meant by “notions” are sewing implements such as thread, needles, and, for a sewing machine, bobbins and such.
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### Author:  [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/222 "2013-03-30T22:19:21Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> **Sketches.** They’re called **sketches** in the business.
>
> **Skits** are what you do a couple of times a semester in German/French/Spanish class to show you’ve learned the material correctly.
May I draw your attention to [this book,](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Wing-commander-Muriel-Volestrangler-F-R-H-S/dp/0413415600) by the writer of the skit in question? (The actual skit is omitted from the book “by popular demand”).
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/223 "2013-03-31T02:17:07Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> When I heard the Pope’s choice of a name, the first thing I thought of was “Does this guy know how many people associate that name with a mule?”
I’m going to guess about 8 people. Didn’t those movies come out shortly after the civil war?
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### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/224 "2013-03-31T02:26:58Z")
I wonder if it’s only due to the environment I’m in, but I’m mystified how Van Halen seems to be totally forgotten. I was talking to a girl in probably her late twenties, who grew up in California, and mentioned Van Halen. “I’ve never heard any of his music.”
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/225 "2013-03-31T02:31:32Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> Actually, what I meant by “notions” are sewing implements such as thread, needles, and, for a sewing machine, bobbins and such.
Again, this sounds like someone people wearing crinoline and bonnets or vests and monocles would enquire after at their local haberdasher’s, having just alighted from a hansom cab.
In other words, not something average people living in the mid-late 20th/early 21st centuries would seriously ask for except as part of some sort of facetious “Pretending to be from the past” thing, for the most part.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/226 "2013-03-31T02:40:49Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> I wonder if it’s only due to the environment I’m in, but I’m mystified how Van Halen seems to be totally forgotten.
And nobody remembers _Foster and Allen_. Or _Val Doonican_. Or _Climie Fisher_. Or _Swing Out Sister_.
I’m exaggerating, but I think a lot of bands like Van Halen may have been big for a lot shorter time than we remember, only a couple of years of true hugeness, then a decade or so of lingering memory, then finally forgotten. If you’re not still churning out the occasional hit like _U2_, or a turning point in music history like _The Beatles_, then you will be forgotten, sooner or later.
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### Author:  [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/227 "2013-03-31T02:53:12Z")
I was talking to one of my aunts today and she didn’t know what creationism is. I think she probably knew what evolution is, but I’m not positive. She’d never heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial (and we live in Tennessee, although we aren’t native Tennesseans). She’s retired from a relatively high position in a good-sized company, she’s a college graduate, and she’s not dumb. She said, “well, it all happened before I was born and doesn’t affect me, so why would I care?”. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t think to ask her if she believed in the Book of Genesis as literal truth - we’re Catholic, so that’s unlikely.
StG
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### Author:  [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/228 "2013-03-31T04:11:07Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#):
>
> Again, this sounds like someone people wearing crinoline and bonnets or vests and monocles would enquire after at their local haberdasher’s, having just alighted from a hansom cab.
>
> In other words, not something average people living in the mid-late 20th/early 21st centuries would seriously ask for except as part of some sort of facetious “Pretending to be from the past” thing, for the most part.
[**Notions on eBay**](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Colorful-Sewing-Room-Notions-Thread-Scissors-Pins-Buttons-Various-Sizes-Types-/330617479427?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item7dbd27a632).
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/229 "2013-03-31T04:28:50Z")
> [@Essured](#):
>
> And more on-topic, I’ve met people (Australians) who don’t know that Darwin was bombed by Japanese forces.
>
> I don’t expect anyone from other countries to know that, but if you’ve been through the Australian school system, I’m shocked if you’ve never heard a whipser about it. Maybe not the details, but at least that it happened!
I was in the AUS school system 70-76, and it was never mentioned - we didn’t do AUS history. I knew about it a little bit from media references, but I didn’t know anyone got HURT, or that anything was DAMAGED.
I did read “The one day of the year” War wasn’t a really pupular story in the 70’s.
It wasn’t until years later that the media started running stories about the Darwin bombings. At that time, I expressed my amazement that everything I’d learned had been wrong. The bloke I was talking to (old enough to remember) told me that everyone in AUS at the time knew what had happend – it was just the government downplaying the event.
Years after that I saw a map of AUS shipping sunk off the AUS coast. That was never mentioned either.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/230 "2013-03-31T05:00:40Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#):
>
> Which doesn’t change my point at all.
>
> ‘George Harrison’ is not an uncommon name at all. That the George Harrison of the Beatles is the only one who’s a famous musician doesn’t mean he’s the only one who _could_ be a famous musician.
c’mon. If you were a musician using the name George Harrison, that would be like an author using the name JK Rowling.
And If you then put the name on the cover of your album, that would be like publishing a book called “Harry Potter and the passed off merchandise”
With lesser-known authors, you do occasional see books with the note: This Author is not That Author – that’s why I only use my initials" but even that is not common.
On the other hand, using a different name as your pen-name or stage-name is so common that there is a compoind word describing each of those two cases.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/231 "2013-03-31T05:08:25Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> c’mon. If you were a musician using the name George Harrison, that would be like an author using the name JK Rowling.
>
> And If you then put the name on the cover of your album, that would be like publishing a book called “Harry Potter and the passed off merchandise”
>
> With lesser-known authors, you do occasional see books with the note: This Author is not That Author – that’s why I only use my initials" but even that is not common.
>
> On the other hand, using a different name as your pen-name or stage-name is so common that there is a compoind word describing each of those two cases.
I once read that Al Lewis and (I think) Dick Martin, who were really born with those names, were going to make the “other” guys bill themselves as Dino [Dean] Crocetti and Joseph [Jerry] Levitch! :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/232 "2013-03-31T05:14:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> I don’t know about any talking mules either. Is that Mr. Ed’s son?
Cousin, twice removed. The family don’t talk about it. (Mr Ed is much younger, but Francis didn’t have any children)
Both directed by Arthur Lubin, and, if you ask me, Mr Ed’s “owner” Wilbur Post (Alan Young) also owes something to Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart) in “Harvey”
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/233 "2013-03-31T05:25:26Z")
> [@Honey](#):
>
> I met a girl once who was totally amazed that Paul McCartney had been in a group before Wings.
My little sister (1968-) was surprised that the Beatles had done a cover of the Sesame Street song “Yellow Submarine”
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/234 "2013-03-31T05:34:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> I don’t listen to any current music. Whatever. I miss out on ALL SORTS of current references.
>
> But…I am catching up on my Thackeray!
My kids high-school english teacher had never heard of the Bowdlers (Thomas and Henrietta if you want to look them up). Not something I would expect everyone to know, but he was an ENGLISH teacher, teaching SHAKESPEARE in an edited version that had all the NAUGHTY BITS REMOVED for use in a Christian school.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/235 "2013-03-31T05:36:43Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> I just have to point out, Tolkien did not invent the concept of second-breakfast. Hobbit culture was modeled on various aspects of real rural European cultures, and that’s one such.
Tolkien was also extremely interested in languages and words, and he would have been keenly aware of the humour of calling a second meal a “break fast”.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/236 "2013-03-31T05:47:00Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#):
>
> I was recently baffled by the number of people I know who didn’t recognize a drawing of Lon Chaney, jr as the Wolfman.
Maybe it was a really bad drawing
[http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2013/03/18/cidu8/](http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2013/03/18/cidu8/)
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/237 "2013-03-31T06:27:15Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> I remember _Puff, the Magic Dragon._ I even remember the urban myth that the song is about getting high. I totally dug that scene between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro in _Meet the Parents._
It was banned in Singapore.
To understand that, it helps to know that “Chasing the Dragon” was a traditional chinese method of taking opiates by inhalation of smoke.
And that “Chasing the Dragon” leads to a kind of spaced-out fantasy traditionally called a “pipe-dream”
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/238 "2013-03-31T06:37:35Z")
> [@Kenm](#):
>
> [**Notions on eBay**](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Colorful-Sewing-Room-Notions-Thread-Scissors-Pins-Buttons-Various-Sizes-Types-/330617479427?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item7dbd27a632).
All I can say is I worked in retail (both general and electronics) for more than a decade and I _never_ heard “notions” used to describe needles, threads, buttons and other sewing sundries.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/239 "2013-03-31T06:45:26Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#):
>
> My contribution, but it’s not strictly pop culture: I’d bet that if you asked a class of high school seniors “How many feet are in a mile” or “How many pounds are in a ton” probably not half would be able to answer.
A good time to teach them Metric then, where the numbers make sense, or are easily guessable.
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### Author:  [@\_Olive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Olive)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2013, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/240 "2013-03-31T07:32:58Z")
I met Jerry Seinfeld about 15 years ago or so. I had no idea who he was or what he did. The name wasn’t familiar to me at all. Whoops! sorry.
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