# References You Probably Wouldn't Get without a Certain Bit of Knowledge
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 15, 2021, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558 "2021-01-15T01:17:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/1 "2021-01-15T01:17:27Z")
In the opening of tonight’s episode of _ **Endeavour** _, a barber asks one gentleman if he needs “anything for the weekend” when he’s finished with him. Not in a million years would I realize the significance of that question if I hadn’t known a British fellow years ago who told me of his similar experiences growing up in the UK.
Condoms were sold under the table in barber shops back in the day, and that was the question commonly asked.
In _ **The Curse of the Were-Rabbit** _, Lady Tottingham tells Wallace to call her “Totty.” I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if I hadn’t picked up some British slang from reading certain, uhm, men’s magazines.
“Totty” is a somewhat salacious term for a (presumably) young woman.
Do you have any other examples?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/2 "2021-01-15T01:26:05Z")
I think everything is a reference to something requiring a certain bit of knowledge that we had to learn at some point. None of us was born with an innate set of references.
> **[Ten Thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/)**
>
> Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/3 "2021-01-15T01:33:01Z")
In what way is the Yellowstone Supervolcano relevant here?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/4 "2021-01-15T01:39:20Z")
It’s an example of a reference that somebody might make that somebody else might not get without a certain bit of knowledge.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/5 "2021-01-15T01:45:52Z")
During re-reads I often think about how very much of the humor in Discworld books depends on familiarity with earlier books and movies that are themselves receding from wide memory. Someday someone will need to give them an _Annotated Alice_ treatment.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/6 "2021-01-15T01:57:54Z")
In the 1967 version of _Casino Royale_, the following exchange takes place between Evelyn Tremble/James Bond (Peter Sellers) and Q’s assistant, who is measuring him for a tailored suit:
> [@](#):
>
> [Q’s Assistant](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0920272/?ref_=tt_ch): What side do you dress on?
>
> [Evelyn Tremble](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000634/?ref_=tt_ch): Away from the window.
The question, asked by high-end tailors, is about which side a gentleman’s … ahem … junk hangs lower on, so that the tailor can make that trouser leg wider at the top. Of course Tremble doesn’t pick up on this.
I think the remark about “What side do you dress” may be in the original novel, or at least one of the Bond books.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/7 "2021-01-15T02:33:29Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> In the opening of tonight’s episode of _ **Endeavour** _ , a barber asks one gentleman if he needs “anything for the weekend” when he’s finished with him. Not in a million years would I realize the significance of that question if I hadn’t known a British fellow years ago who told me of his similar experiences growing up in the UK.
>
> Condoms were sold under the table in barber shops back in the day, and that was the question commonly asked.
I got that from the Python boys when I was 15; _Wonderful World of Sounds_ had a herd of zebras\* visiting the chemist for something for the weekend.
\*Pronounced “zeh-bruz”
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### Author:  [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/8 "2021-01-15T10:32:22Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Someday someone will need to give them an _Annotated Alice_ treatment.
It’s been abandoned for a few years, but…
[The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0](https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html)
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### Author:  [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/9 "2021-01-15T11:00:20Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I think the remark about “What side do you dress” may be in the original novel, or at least one of the Bond books.
It also crops up, unsurprisingly, in a bit of dialogue in Le Carre’s _The Tailor of Panama_, written much later (1990s). It goes something like (from memory):
“And we dress, sir? Most of my gentlemen seem to favour left these days. I don’t _think_ it’s political.”
“Couldn’t tell you - damn thing bobs about like a bloody windsock.”
I opened this thread not expecting to get any of the references that might have been in it, but being British meant familiarity with the first couple. The second is a nice example of a bit of ‘adult’ humour in a kids’ film that will go over the little ones’ heads - not that it would matter much, being a very mild word anyway. But yes, “totty” means ‘sexually desirable (usually young) woman’. Don’t think it’s used much these, being quite objectifying.
In general I agree with Little Nemo, can’t think of any good examples of my own right now.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/10 "2021-01-15T15:43:21Z")
I probably heard a lot of these kinds of references over my years. But I didn’t even know I wasn’t getting them, or that there was anything to get.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/references-you-probably-wouldnt-get-without-a-certain-bit-of-knowledge/930558/11 "2021-01-15T17:53:59Z")
Oh, if you want to KNOW you’re not getting a reference, pop round for a conversation with my nerd friends. You’ll be confused by more than half of what’s said.
I really do wonder how any ordinary mortal\* could parse a sentence that has a Legend of Zelda reference but with a word changed to make fun of a Tom Baker Doctor Who episode, all then embedded in a long Last Starfighter pun…
(Oh, and this needlessly complex retort is voiced in an “Original Toonami English Dub of Naruto” accent for some obscure reason)…
…
\*which includes me, who has more than once asked for footnotes