# When time and history change the meaning of a joke in pop culture. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463 "2007-09-08T14:59:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/81 "2007-09-11T12:29:25Z")
In last night’s rerun of Designing Women, Suzanne is getting Anthony dressed up as a women so he can go to immigrant and get Suzanne’s maid Consuela’s Green Card for her, handling the interview and the test. Having anyone obtain a Green Card under false pretenses is no longer funny. He also said the wig made him look like Jane Wyman. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/82 "2007-09-11T13:51:37Z")
[QUOTE=maggenpye] Also, Pink Floyd used the Berlin Wall as a backdrop for a live performance of one of their albums (what was the name again…) because of the extra meaning the location imparted. [/QUOTE] Rio? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/83 "2007-09-11T17:53:49Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] Well, there’s the Simpsons episode in which Bart and Lisa watch Steve Irwin torn to pieces by a crocodile and lament missing the “feeding frenzy”. His death made _that_ joke either funnier or more tasteless, depending on your viewpoint. [/QUOTE] Can’t it be both? Like the late Earl Warren. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/84 "2007-09-11T23:03:55Z")
[QUOTE=Interrobang!?] This made me curious, so I checked the online OED: (Thank you, Seattle Public Library account.) So the term long predates Amos’ song. Common? Harder to tell – though a quick Google Groups search turns up 6 hits on the phrase “burn a cd” before 12/31/1993, so it wasn’t unheard of. None of those refer to literal flames, but a couple of them mean “record and release an album” rather than “make a copy of a CD at home.” At the very least, it makes the Amos lyric ambiguous. [/QUOTE] Even more so: Is there any reason to think that the song isn’t talking about setting a match to to a Certificate of Deposit, aka a CD? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/85 "2007-09-11T23:35:11Z")
[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=] Can’t it be both? Like the late Earl Warren. [/QUOTE] Now who’s being naive, **iamthewalrus**? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2007, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463/86 "2007-09-12T08:52:56Z")
> [@Interrobang](#): > > ]…a quick Google Groups search turns up 6 hits on the phrase “burn a cd” before 12/31/1993, so it wasn’t unheard of. None of those refer to literal flames, but a couple of them mean “record and release an album” rather than “make a copy of a CD at home.” > > At the very least, it makes the Amos lyric ambiguous. Not really. Although the term ‘burn’ was doubtless used in some techie circles to refer to making a CD prior to 1994 (as your references show) nobody outside of those circles would ever have used it that way, and once again your references show that too: all the pre-1994 references are from technical sources, not from Newsweek or popular TV. More importantly as late as 1998 the term was still sufficiently unusual to demand the use of quotation marks around “burn”. I had a lot of friends in the early 90s who were studying or working in IT, and I had never heard the term “burn a CD” used to mean create a CD. Moreover CD burners just weren’t publicly available in 1994. I can remember _seeing_ my first burner in 1995, and that was in the computer of a very tech savvy freind who had all the latest gadgets; it cost as much to buy blank CDs as to buy music CDs. Suffice to to say that absolutely nobody who bought the album in 1994 thought it meant anything other than literaly setting fire to CDs. The meaning was in no way ambiguous to the audience then If the author intended it to be ambiguous then she failed miserably and was using a term that could only possibly have meaning toy someone intimately familiar with the music or cutting edge IT industries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-time-and-history-change-the-meaning-of-a-joke-in-pop-culture/418463.md?page=4)