Ohhh... NOW I get it!

[PamelaJaye]

at the risk of repeating myself cause although I don't think I've seen this thread before, I'd have to "find" thru 7 pages to be sure...

Quaker Oats -- related to Quakers!
same with Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Biggest revelation from growing older: The more you learn, the more you laugh at the parodies. Also known as Airplane Syndrome.
I saw Airplane when I was 20 or 21. I'd lived in a cocoon and didn't know a lot of things that lots of people knew. And then there were the old movie references.

I'm sure the people in the white zone - for loading and unloading of passengers only - in 1989! were wondering why I was standing there giggling at the PA.
I often find myself "learning" something and giggling or going AHA! (it's a detective thing* ) over the remembered parody. years later.

then there is Advanced Reading Level
when I was young, I read lots of words - repeatedly - that I did not know, could figure from context, and never looked up the pronunciation of. "Awry" stands out. One day, later, hearing it for the dozenth time, it occurred to me that maybe that word I'd read a lot was not pronounced "orry."

When I was little I loved the Beatles but when I was 4,5, 6 I didn't get the lyrics. My mother - despite her love of the BigBands - tried to help. And so I got "give me moo" - apparently that meant milk - a vague memory of a penny... while may have stood for wages...

*if you've never read Spenser novels

now I've gotten that out of my system, I may be able to read this thread in peace. but i doubt it. As of 2007 or 2008. blogs, and then social media have succeeded in doing what TV was only supposed to have done. My attention span is shot.
(my computer is a few years old and i have 20+ tabs open, some of which are facebook. I have to *wait* to see the typing on the screen, which soemtiems i don't do and therein lie the typos.

[PamelaJaye]

In a related vein, I try to use "ATM" myself and refrain from correcting the hoi polloi when they say "ATM machine."

I work for a company whose development matrix is based on a document called "The TDF". What does TDF stand for? "THE Delivery Framework". I suggested we simply call it "the DF", but that idea was shot down. Ironically the front page of the document includes the slogan. "Lead. Simplify. Execute flawlessly."

I know I have been on Facebook too long because I have this intense desire to LIKE this comment (and many others)

[PamelaJaye]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1251 Act One of this This American Life ep deals with childhood misconceptions that get carried to adulthood, including "xing".

It wasn't until senior high school English that I realized the word pronounced "epi-toe-mee" was the same as the word I'd always read as "epi-tome", like "epi" + a heavy book.

How could I forget?
I have never seen this since and curse then husband for throwing it out, but once upon a time in 1987, Good Housekeeping ran an article called "One Nation and a Vegetable."

[PamelaJaye]

Is it okay to admit that I confused the words "vegetarian" and "virgin" when I was younger?

In first or second grade, the teacher was talking or asking about astronauts. One kid said they those guys who hung around with Jesus. Great religious education I got at home: that was the first time I'd ever heard of the apostles.

[PamelaJaye]

When the song "Love in an Elevator" came out, I was 10 or 11 and wasn't hip to any sexual lingo. I thought the line "livin' it up when you're going down" was just referring to going up and down in an elevator. Then, about 2 years ago I heard the song on the radio and suddenly thought, "Oh! They mean GOING DOWN!"

I'm not going to mention (again) how old I am, but I think that phrase may have a more precise meaning than the one I thought it had.

And nice to see someone else with awry.

Related to elevators (and my cocoon of a childhood) back in my 20s, in the elevator leaving work (I have amazing flashbacks to that office, watching Mad Men. No! not *that* old!) the girls were talking about partying coming up on the weekend. They said something like "It's gonna snow!!" An older lady said "but it's summer!"
Even *I* knew she had no idea.

After a while of watching LaughIn, my father made me stop as I was "old enough to understand" the jokes.
I wasn't. The flew over my head like the lyrics to all the hit songs I sand never having a clue till years later (those are the lyrics???) and all the gay people - they were happy. I wonder if I ever stopped to wonder why they were proud of being happy. I don't know if they were proud back then... And my elementary school was on Gay Street.

[PamelaJaye]

I was just listening to a Beatles album, and it suddenly hit me: "Oh, Revolver -- because a record turns around in a circle when you play it."

I didn't get it till I read that. Granted, my records stopped at Beatles IV (VI?) and Help!

[PamelaJaye]

dropping by.
used to happen a lot
like the time I figured out Quaker Oats might have something to do with Quakers or, appropriately, that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was made up of Mormons...

The lyrics to Beatles songs I was too young to figure out...

Reverse Parody: After seeing Airplane, finally standing in the drop off area at LAX and hearing The White Zone is for loading and unloading... and breaking into hysterical laughter that confused everyone around me except my husband, who was having the same reaction.

It still happens now and then. I'll remember when I see the original post again.

yup, the winner. in 1974 on WRKO the song TSOP by MFSB. They continually told me it was the sound of Philadelphia by Mothers, Fathers, Sister, Brothers, but I was brought up on "the sound of this and that", and it wasn't connecting. I knew what MFSB stood for but I kept wondering what TSOP stood for.

Then one day a DJ joked: "TSOP - the sound of pigs."

Dawn broke over Marblehead (and Westwood)
The other day I was reading of the Buffy plot where no one could figure out that Ben and Glory were the same person, no matter how many times they were told. It was sort of like that.

wow. it's only the reference to Ben and Glory that separate this post from 2010 from the one I wrote just the other day...

reminds me of when I was a teenager playing radio station with 2 turntables, one tape recorder, and a clock that we had to keep re-setting. For years I listened to those tapes and things that happened in them and reacted, while listening, only to hear myself on the tape reacting just the same.

Sorry for the rerun.
I shared the thread on Facebook the other day. Only one person who saw it read it (even I haven't till now). The reason I mention Facebook is that I was trying to figure out when my duck laid her first egg - and it was Before Facebook (for me) so I had to dig hard to try to remember where I would have posted it.
This thread started before I was on Facebook.
(and that thing in Disney looks like a D to me... I think maybe I wasn't as inundated by advertising at that age)

[PamelaJaye]

I'm listening to a podcast about boxing movies while I'm reading this thread, and they mentioned how Max Baer wore a Star of David on his boxers, and I just realized why they're called boxer shorts.

and again.

[PamelaJaye]

"I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole" is not a reference to a really tall guy from Warsaw.

I usually follow that up with a 6 foot Czech.
I hope I haven't posted that one before.

[billiej]

"I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole" is not a reference to a really tall guy from Warsaw.

I usually follow that up with a 6 foot Czech.

My mother always told that joke - I often say it internally.

[PamelaJaye]

"I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole" is not a reference to a really tall guy from Warsaw.

I usually follow that up with a 6 foot Czech.

My mother always told that joke - I often say it internally.

thanks funny. I never heard anyone say that. It was just that I had a crush on a guy and he was from Poland, and despite his perfect English, I decided to study Polish (gave up after 10 months)

[BaltimoreTom]

"I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole" is not a reference to a really tall guy from Warsaw.

I usually follow that up with a 6 foot Czech.
I hope I haven't posted that one before.

There was a movie called The Henderson Monster, starring Jason Miller and Christine Lahti. Miller was a jerk of a researcher -- think every bad thing you heard about David Baltimore -- and Lahti exposed his sloppy genetic research, which led to a lawsuit. She won the case, but Miller was threatening her career -- "By the time I'm done, no one will touch you with a ten-foot pole!"

Whereupon Stephen Collins, playing her husband, gets in his face -- "I'm a six foot Pole; how about I touch YOU?" I have no other explanation for why this exchange has stuck in my head all these years, except for the fact that line was just too good to pass up.

(Not 100% sure on how Collins ended his threat; but the intent was clear.)

[PamelaJaye]

Whereupon Stephen Collins, playing her husband, gets in his face -- "I'm a six foot Pole; how about I touch YOU?" I have no other explanation for why this exchange has stuck in my head all these years, except for the fact that line was just too good to pass up.

(Not 100% sure on how Collins ended his threat; but the intent was clear.)

If I'd seen it, it would have stuck in my head because I love puns and wordplay. I can't always recite cockpit chatter from the movie Airplane, anymore, but from another of the movies Leslie Nielson was in, I still have "now, the upper hand is on the other foot"

[skullturfq]

"Lincoln Logs" = "linkin' logs"

[grodney]

"Lincoln Logs" = "linkin' logs"

Wow, never made that ... connection. Wiki page doesn't mention it, soooo, backfit?

[Paucle]

similarly, the Lincoln Highway actually got its name because it was the first national road to be Linkin' the 2 coasts. Or so I've heard from a FOAF.

[rockgolf]

Comic book magician Dr. Strange was not named for the film character Dr. Strangelove.

The Marvel comic came out in 1963, the film in 1964.

[jzerocsk]

Comic book magician Dr. Strange was not named for the film character Dr. Strangelove.

The Marvel comic came out in 1963, the film in 1964.

They changed it after the movie came out. Used to be Dr. Merkwürdig.

[themanwho]

The "mon" at the beginning of "monarch" is related to (or comes from) the same "mon" in mono-. The monarch is the #1 person, and presumably the only one at the top.

[grodney]

Ohhh...when watching soccer "highlights", in the scoring summary listing the goals (if any), that little tick mark means the time of the goal, not the distance of the goal. For instance, if it says:
Rote Jr. - 79'
that means the goal was in the 79th minute of the, errr, game(?), not that it was from 79 feet away.

[Whatsahoe]

I always thought the University of Alabama had an elephant for a mascot because their campus is in Tuscaloosa (like "tusk"aloosa) but apparently not.

[skullturfq]

I didn't know until a trip to Florida last week that "key limes" and "key lime pie" are named for the Florida Keys.

[skullturfq]

It took me a while to clue in that the expression "I'm dating myself" means "I'm revealing my approximate age" and not "I'm not currently romantically involved with anyone."

[skullturfq]

When I read today's answers to last week's Tuesday Trivia, I was like, "Ohhhhh, so 'Swiss Family Robinson' is a reference to Robinson Crusoe."

[skullturfq]

Just read this today. This is better than the last three I posted.

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/france_is_bacon/

EDIT: What I find so beautiful about that one is not just the initial misunderstanding, but the fact that this 12-year-old would reply to "Knowledge is power" by saying "France is bacon?", awaiting clarification, but people must have just thought, "What a well-read 12-year-old, being aware that it was Francis Bacon who said that."