# Have you met someone who didn't know a really well-known pop or historical reference?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:** 17
### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/321 "2013-04-10T02:34:07Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> I’m sure that Shakespeare beats it.
That was my first thought but Shakespeare wrote plays, not books.
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### Author:  [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2013, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/322 "2013-04-10T08:48:58Z")
Shakespeare, blah! He just collected well known quotations and put them together.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/323 "2013-04-10T08:57:02Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#):
>
> One fine day, when I was in high school, I was talking to one of my classmates about Through the Looking-Glass. He hadn’t read it. He had barely heard of it. I mentioned Jabberwocky, and he was nonplused, so I start quoting it: " 'Twas brillig and the slithy toves did…" He looked at me as if I was frothing at the mouth and about to become violent at any moment. Reassurances that it was just a nonsense poem did not keep him from scurrying away.
Eh, I’m sure it’s easier to find copies of it when English is your first language, but I had heard about it and been unable to find it for years when I saw it in a neighbor’s library and asked to borrow it. I’ve never seen a physical copy again, anywhere.
Alice in Wonderland is ubiquituous, although sadly it tends to be Disney’s rather than Carroll’s; Through the Looking-glass, not so much and it’s more likely to be referenced than quoted or read. You’re likely to find people saying that “vorpal sword” is a reference to some game or other, rather than to Through the Looking-Glass - they’re the same people who think that “The Number of the Beast” is a Metallica reference.
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### Author:  [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/324 "2013-04-24T16:59:41Z")
> [@gunnergoz](#):
>
> When my new Ukrainian bride got to the USA, it turned out that she did not know who John Wayne was, along with a lot of other famous US actors of the 40’s through the 1980’s. After the late 80’s, many of the West’s movie stars became known in the former Soviet countries as they opened up to the West after the collapse of the USSR.
> Oddly enough, though, she’d seen and loved Gone With the Wind - that was a film that was approved by the Communists and was what Hollywood was generally known for over in the Soviet countries for many years.
In Number The Stars by Lois Lowry (which takes place in WW2 Denmark) the girls played with Gone With the Wind paper dolls. Apparently GWTW had achieved international fame even then.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/325 "2013-04-24T17:18:37Z")
> [@Renifer](#):
>
> In Number The Stars by Lois Lowry (which takes place in WW2 Denmark) the girls played with Gone With the Wind paper dolls. Apparently GWTW had achieved international fame even then.
It was released in 1939 and was the most famous film of its time shattering all box office records. It is really that implausible?
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/326 "2013-04-24T17:23:12Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> It was released in 1939 and was the most famous film of its time shattering all box office records. It is really that implausible?
[Here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/releaseinfo) is a list of release dates for GWTW. It definitely had international fame by then although it wasn’t actually released in Denmark until the late 1950’s. It’s not surprising that they would have heard of it especially considering that it was made from an extremely popular and internationally well known novel.
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### Author:  [@Srsly\_Dad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Srsly_Dad)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/327 "2013-04-24T17:28:34Z")
I was in meeting with my boss and her boss. I do system development for a costing group. Her boss was a micro-manger type and a had strictly a finance background. He wanted to cram every possible thing into one spreadsheet. Any time we brought up any issue relating to complexity causing things to get slowed down or making it too complicated his pat response was always, “We can just get more powerful computers.”.
The subject came up in this particular meeting and I finally just replied “Yes you are right, if we can just get the approval for the right flux capacitors we can probably get by.”
Fortunately, it went right over his head and he moved on to his next micro-managing topic.
After the meeting, my boss warned me to not do that again since she had almost spit her Diet Coke all over him trying to stifle a laugh.
There was a lot of stuff that went right over his head like that. After this meeting, we kind of made a game of slipping in references whenever we could (although in a not so blatantly insubordinate fashion), just because we knew he really did not get them at all.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/328 "2013-04-24T17:35:10Z")
> [@Floater](#):
>
> Shakespeare, blah! He just collected well known quotations and put them together.
I had a similar experience hearing The Beatles 1962 - 1966 album for the first time in about 1974. I wondered why The Beatles were doing all these cover versions of popular songs until someone pointed out to me that they were the originals and what I’d been hearing for years were the covers.
Singers from Sonny and Cher, to Dinah Shore, to Andy Williams, to Julie Andrews, to Donny & Marie, etc. had been covering this stuff on variety TV for years. The fucking Beatles wrote all these songs?
Yesterday?
Help?
Michelle?
Eleanor Rigby?
In My Life?
And I love Her?
Wow. And thus my love affair began.
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### Author:  [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/329 "2013-04-24T20:20:38Z")
To all those people who are popular culture blind, I invite them to dip their toes in. They’re missing a lot of fun stuff!
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/330 "2013-04-25T03:15:04Z")
> [@Srsly\_Dad](#):
>
> The subject came up in this particular meeting and I finally just replied “Yes you are right, if we can just get the approval for the right flux capacitors we can probably get by.”
>
> Fortunately, it went right over his head and he moved on to his next micro-managing topic.
> After the meeting, my boss warned me to not do that again since she had almost spit her Diet Coke all over him trying to stifle a laugh.
>
> There was a lot of stuff that went right over his head like that. After this meeting, we kind of made a game of slipping in references whenever we could (although in a not so blatantly insubordinate fashion), just because we knew he really did not get them at all.
I had to google that one myself just now despite having very much enjoyed _Back to the Future_ and seen it several times. Just not recently.
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### Author:  [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/331 "2013-04-25T19:15:50Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> [Here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/releaseinfo) is a list of release dates for GWTW. It definitely had international fame by then although it wasn’t actually released in Denmark until the late 1950’s. It’s not surprising that they would have heard of it especially considering that it was made from an extremely popular and internationally well known novel.
I find it interesting that the linked-to list gives the release date for GWTW in West Germany, as January 1953. Found so for me, partly because of a reference in a much-liked work by a British travel writer. This guy was touring at length in West Germany in the early 1950s; and remarked about a small town in the north of the country, that the place was so far off the beaten track "that the local cinema (part, of course, of the local hotel) was in 1954 announcing – 'At Last ! _Gone With The Wind_ '. "
With the film’s first being released – per the cited list – in West Germany in 1953, perhaps not so much of a hick town after all. However, the author – though IMO he wrote delightfully – was a rather unworldly character; re this issue, he might well have been overlooking results of the 1939 - 45 “misunderstanding” between Germany and much of the rest of the world – even though he had probably taken part in that same episode in history.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/332 "2013-04-25T19:40:43Z")
> [@phreesh](#):
>
> To all those people who are popular culture blind, I invite them to dip their toes in. They’re missing a lot of fun stuff!
You’re right, of course: but we have only a limited amount of time (and money) and it’s simply impossible to follow everything. How much do you know about current comic books? (DC and the New 52?) I know a lot; others may know nothing. I think they’re missing out on a lot of fun…but, meanwhile, I’m missing out on the local rock bands, Shakespearean scholarship, poetry readings at the library, and Baseball Fever.
Ya can’t eat everything at the buffet! You’ll pop! (“I’m a zit!”)
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### Author:  [@Cheryl44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheryl44)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/333 "2013-04-25T20:51:00Z")
I love watching TMZ, it’s a completely guilty pleasure. However, I don’t know who half of the people are they talk about.
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### Author:  [@GlennRayinTroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GlennRayinTroy)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/334 "2013-04-26T17:54:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I love watching TMZ, it’s a completely guilty pleasure. However, I don’t know who half of the people are they talk about.
How many people are going to wonder what TMZ is?
And, yes, I watch it too, with my laptop browser opened up to Wikipedia.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/335 "2013-04-26T18:25:33Z")
I knew a man whose parents were the base for a couple (minor) characters in Kerouac’s [_On the Road_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road#Character_key). Needless to say he had an eclectic childhood that didn’t include much religion, or dare I say was even anti-religious. He, I, and a bunch of others were on a committee putting on a convention, and when it came time to decide on what to have for one of the lunch functions, the budget was running a bit short. Somebody wisecracked that maybe we could go with [loaves and fishes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_the_multitude). He had no clue why everyone laughed.
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### Author:  [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/336 "2013-04-26T18:40:15Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> …they’re the same people who think that “The Number of the Beast” is a Metallica reference.
Iron Maiden. 🙂
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### Author:  [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/337 "2013-04-26T18:42:35Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> Wanna go for a beer?
I definitely want to go for a beer with you and **Crafter\_Man**. You’re my kinda people!
I haven’t watched television in several years. See a movie occasionaly but can’t remember who was in what. Who has time, with so many great books in the library to read? 🙂
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### Author:  [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/338 "2013-04-26T22:31:39Z")
> [@gwendee](#):
>
> I haven’t seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but there are enough people referring to them that if someone hisses 'my precious" I know sort of why.
I…thought that was from Silence of the Lambs. ☹
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/339 "2013-04-26T23:30:46Z")
> [@GlennRayinTroy](#):
>
> How many people are going to wonder what TMZ is?
I know what it is, but referring to it as “Tee Em Zed” always seems to elicit reactions of mirth for some reason.
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### Author:  [@OrphanAnnie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OrphanAnnie)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-met-someone-who-didnt-know-a-really-well-known-pop-or-historical-reference/653658/340 "2013-04-28T01:14:01Z")
I’m beginning to feel fairly cosmopolitan – I don’t recognize all of these references but for someone in her sixth decade I recognize many.
With regard to Tolkein and LOTR – those of you who say you don’t recognize this because you haven’t seen the movies may still be missing a bit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was published in 1954. I first read it in 1966, when the hippies had “rediscovered” it. It’s a lot older than the movie adaptations.
But despite wanting to keep current, nothing on earth will persuade me to watch anything involving someone named Kardashian.
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