# M&M column needs an update **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 7, 2004, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778 "2004-04-07T16:50:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/21 "2004-04-24T00:37:10Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > _whoosh_ :rolleyes: Like what do \*you \* use to cut fish? Ginsu? Kershaw? Outback? Smith & Wesson? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/22 "2004-04-25T20:53:33Z")
I have no idea what’s going on here. I didn’t even know there were special knives to cut fish. I’ve never gone fishing, and I didn’t grow up eating seafood. (Yes, I was deprived. Anyone who feels sorry for me should come to DC and take me out for sushi! It’s the only thing that can make up for it now.) I thought the “real fish knife” thing was a reference to some advertising campaign, but now I’m just clueless. I understand the phenomenon among children of thinking that what your parents buy is normal and good and what your friends parents buy is wierd and inferior (or sometimes the other way around) but I never associated it with cutlery. Is their really fish-knife brand-loyalty? Is it so well known that _most_ people associate childhood brand-loyalty with fish knives? 😕 **JWK** said > [@](#): > > You’re not allowing for the “real fish knives” factor. like everyone would know what he was referring to. Apparently, apart from me, everyone did. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/23 "2004-04-25T22:44:42Z")
A) Fish knives are, today, a strictly upper-class, genuine-sterling-silver sort of thing, for the sort of dinner where you have several courses and half a dozen or more pieces of cutlery per seat. B) My particular use of “real fish knives” is merely an allusion to _The Screwtape Letters,_ by C. S. Lewis. > [@](#): > > Her[confidence that her own particular religion is right and every other wrong], which she supposes to be due to Faith, is in reality largely due to the mere colour she has taken from her surroundings. It is not, in fact, very different from the conviction she would have felt at the age of ten that the kind of fish-knives used in her father’s house were the proper or normal or “real” kind, while those of the neighbouring families were “not real fish-knives” at all. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/24 "2004-04-26T01:03:19Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Actually, it occured to me that there is now an Almond **Snickers** in the US! Does this mean that Mars bars no longer exist here? They were always a bit hard to find, so their disapearence could easily have gone unnoticed by me, especially as I don’t eat many candy bars. Nope, they’re still around. Well, at least a candy bar with that name is still around. It is **not** the candy bar of my youth, however. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/25 "2004-04-26T03:46:33Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > I have no idea what’s going on here. I didn’t even know there were special knives to cut fish. I’ve never gone fishing, and I didn’t grow up eating seafood. (Yes, I was deprived. Anyone who feels sorry for me should come to DC and take me out for sushi! It’s the only thing that can make up for it now.) I thought the “real fish knife” thing was a reference to some advertising campaign, but now I’m just clueless. I understand the phenomenon among children of thinking that what your parents buy is normal and good and what your friends parents buy is wierd and inferior (or sometimes the other way around) but I never associated it with cutlery. Is their really fish-knife brand-loyalty? Is it so well known that _most_ people associate childhood brand-loyalty with fish knives? 😕 > > **JWK** said like everyone would know what he was referring to. Apparently, apart from me, everyone did. For the record, I didn’t get it either. However after some googling I figured out that it was a C. S. Lewis reference – but I guess Mr. Kennedy has now cleared that up. The name Alan Smithee is familiar to me, and not just as a directorial pseudonym. Do the letters KJR or TIC have any significance to you, or am I confusing you with someone else? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/26 "2004-04-27T22:40:49Z")
Hey! We got our smilies back! That means I can use a good old :smack: ! How emabrassing for a seminarian to miss a CS Lewis reference. [sourgrapes]Oh well, I never liked him much anyway.\*[/sourgrapes] Now I have to go dig up _The Screwtape Letters_. I never did give it a proper reading. No, **tim314** , I’m afraid you have me confused with another. You mean there’s someone out there whose **really named** Allan Smithee? What would happen if he moved to Hollywood? * * * \*Apart from the Chronicals of Narnia, of course. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778/27 "2004-04-30T07:52:51Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > No, **tim314** , I’m afraid you have me confused with another. You mean there’s someone out there whose **really named** Allan Smithee? What would happen if he moved to Hollywood? No, just a friend of mine who sometimes used it as his screen name. He lives in D.C. too, which is why I thought you might be one and the same. But I guess it’s a big city. I’m glad the conversation has turned to C. S. Lewis. Someone gave me a copy of _Mere Christianity_ a while back, but I’d forgotten about it – I think I’ll go have a look at it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/m-m-column-needs-an-update/238778.md?page=1)