Obscure references?

[Warped9]

How often have you made a reference to something or someone only to realize that few people in your company at a given time actually recognize what you're referring to?

Example 1: "Christ! We thought Nixon was bad and then along comes Dubya." And more than half the people around you look blank thinking, Nixon who?

Example 2: I make a reference to 8-track tapes or perhaps "Man, that dog looks like Winston Churchill." and everone around has a blank look on their face.

Anyone else?

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

The other day, I was talking about my first album purchase with a young one, and I mentioned how annoying and troublesome tapes were, but I couldn't afford CD's back then because they cost so much, though not as much as a laser disc.

The blank stare at 'expensive CD' and 'laser disc' made me want to cry. Thank GAWD she knew what a tape was.

 

[Hermiod]

There are people who don't know who President Nixon was? Did they go to school?

 

[auntiehill]

I remember when I worked at an outdoor supply store (re: a bunch of over-priced gear for wanna-be hippies who never leave the burbs)--I made a reference to someone having a Bob Hope nose, and got nothing but a bunch of blank stares. I also heard a song on the radio and said, "Hey, I used to have that on a 45 when I was a kid."

The clerk stared blankly back and said, "45 of what?"

Of course, this is the same crowd who complained the store's new supply of books was "too weird."

"Weird? In what way? Are they damaged? Out of date? What?"

All I got were shrugs and blank stares. So I go look at the books, and see what the problem was.

"OK, so the collection they sent is a bit eclectic. But I don't think they are too esoteric to appeal to our customers."

The clerk frowned at me and said, "Why do you always have to use such big words!?"

So, whether my references were too obscure, or they were just too stupid to know either their own history or language----well, it was probably an even bet.

 

[Finn]

I had my high school biology class play Jeopardy on Friday. For movies, I had "Luke, I am your father". For one class, no one got it, even after I told them what movie it was from.

 

[auntiehill]

^Oh, that's just wrong.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

^Oh, that's just wrong.

That goes beyond 'wrong' into status.

 

[Goliath]

I recently had my students read Frederick Brown's For the Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus for my seminar on 19th-century European History. That book is full of obscure references that I had to explain--and some which I couldn't.

During a discussion of the controversy surrounding the construction of the Eiffel Tower, Brown says: "For Catholics, it was the sport of revolutionary Nimrods expounding their secularism in Notre-Dame's parish with phallic arrogance."

One of my students mentioned that she found this line funny--"nimrods," hehe. I had to explain that Nimrod was a figure in the Old Testament, who by tradition is associated with the building of the Tower of Babel.

Then I had to explain what the Tower of Babel was.

But when I was done, the class agreed that they had a much better understanding of the text.

 

[sidious618]

There are people who don't know who President Nixon was? Did they go to school?

Sadly, the answer is probably "yes" to both questions.

 

[MANT!]

Public school is no more about teaching kids the subject..it's now about teaching them the damn test that makes or breaks the teacher's paycheck...

Private schools aren't much better...they have to keep passing little Johnny on..or the parents will take the money elsewhere.

Back to the subject..


I told some kid that he sounded like a broken record...and had to explain it to the dimwit...

also about "That's as fake as a Nixon Three Dollar Bill"...

 

[TheKeeper]

A few years ago I was at a family gathering when the subject of Google came up. "Do you use Google? Google can find everything, see everything", etc. I said "Yeah, I dread the day when Google launches the next world war and starts sending Terminators back in time."

Their responses? , even from the younger ones in the group.

 

[StarryEyed]

This was back in the mid nineties but I knew a guy who didn't know the Apollo 13 movie was based on an actual event.

 

[captcalhoun]

i worked with a kid about 6 years younger than me and he was worried about a £2 coin he took from a customer, and i said 'oh it's fine, it's from the '86 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, don't you remember them?' his response: 'I was 2'... that's when i knew i was getting old...

it was reinforced a couple years later when i referenced an old '80s weekly kids show to another kid and he had no clue what i was referring to as he was 16 and was only born in 1990...

i made a joke to a couple of young girls that came in the shop carrying cameras about should i start 'Vogue-ing' faces result. i'm like, 'you know? the Madonna song?!' more blank looks...

i'm 32 and i am old man...

 

[trekkiedane]

This was back in the mid nineties but I knew a guy who didn't know the Apollo 13 movie was based on an actual event.

In the late eighties a cinema in town showed A Clockwork Orange and a friend blank faced commented: "I liked the way they made it look as if it were made in the sixties or seventies"...

 

[Mistral]

I tossed a pair of sunglasses to my neighbor on Saturday at a pool party and said,

"For better hallway vision."

I was rewarded with a very blank look. On the other hand, I was able to tell his hot girlfriend, right in front of him, that she was the "cat's meow". He had the same blank look. Maybe it was the booze...


In my film studies class in the mid eighties we watched 2001 and some uh, person, asked if "the Discovery was still out there?" -not a reference but the Apollo 13 comment reminded me...

 

[Mary Ann]

Last year my husband purchased a record player but had to return it because the stylus was broken. When he told the teenager at the returns counter the problem the kid said, "What's a stylus?". My husband, who's 46, felt very old indeed.

I've lived in the UK for over 10 years but I still sometimes unwittingly use North American references, such as saying "Well, isn't that special" in the SNL Church Lady voice. Little wonder I get blank looks from the locals.

 

[Warped9]

When I experience these moments it rarely makes me feel old. Particularly when I'm dealing with historical references. At those times I feel that our educational system is really lacking.

Worse yet, though, is the sense that so many seem to lack any real intellectual curiosity. They simply shrug off their ignorance as if it's no big deal. Boy, they're just the kind of folks that some corporate and political types are just salivating to cater to.

 

[J.T.B.]

Here's one for the group. I don't know if it's an age thing or just cultural reference points. My uncle and I were working on getting an old truck started, and he was talking about putting in some fuel additive, but he couldn't come up with the word. I knew what he was talking about, so I said "Additive." And then he said, "Add-a-give!" And I laughed for at least a full minute, but my cousin looked at us like we were idiotic.

Anybody else get the reference, let alone find it funny?

--Justin

 

[Finn]

^Both Cultural (especially pop culture) and Age thing. I didn't get many of those mentioned already.

 

[Ethros]

In a similarish thing I sometimes steal jokes from say, a standup routine or comedy show, if I know the people I'm the company of won't have seen it.

For instance the other night I was at the pub with some people, and someone mentioned they had a gay Jewish friend, and I stole Larry David's line from the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on the subject.
Then later the topic of Anne Frank came up, and I used Ricky Gervais' jokes from his Politics standup show, "ends a bit abruptly. No sequel, lazy!"

I'm such a thief