UPDATE:
"There can be only one" is the famous line from Highlander.
"Sentimental old fluff" occurs in an exchange in Duck Soup:
Groucho (flirtatiously): "You might think me a sentimental old fluff, but would you mind giving me a lock of your hair?"
Dumont (girlishly): "A lock of my hair? I had no idea you..."
Groucho: "You're getting off easy. I was going to ask for the whole wig!"
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I've commented to Tam that one nice thing about being in grad school is that everyone gets my psychology jokes, but I have also run into generation gap issues in pop culture knowledge. This week in my social psychology class, only the professor and I had never heard of this personage known as "Chris Brown" who recently assaulted some other celebrity I have only vaguely heard of and is some singer or actress or model or combination thereof, I believe. In cognitive class, I found myself having to correct my comment about the Pepsi Challenge being "several years ago" to it being from the 1980's.
The professor I TA for, who is about my age, runs into this also - he used a Borg analogy in class that I thought quite apt but that did not seem to connect at all with the kids in the class who, in 1994 when the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale aired, were about 6 years old.
Today one of my fellow students asked me whether there could be more than one something or other in a 3-way interaction in ANOVA. I didn't really hear the entire question because I had no choice but to answer: "There can be only one." He looked at me blankly and I said, sorry, what was that?
OK, people, here's the thing: Please answer in the comments: (1) Do you recognize the source of the phrase "There can be only one" and (2) Would you have felt that same immediate temptation to respond with this phrase?
Sadly, I do have to admit the possibility that in this particular instance, it's less about the generation gap and more that these psychology students are not quite up to the high geek standards set by the rest of my friends and family. (I love you guys.)
Oh, and a special bonus: (3) Do you recognize the source of the phrase "sentimental old fluff" in the previous post?
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11 comments:
I recognize "There can be only one," but I don't know where it's from. I think I recognize it from other people (like you) saying it. I hear it a Laurence-Fishburn-in-the-Matrix-movies voice, but that means little.
I don't recognize the fluff reference either.
I know the source of "There can be only one" and love it. I probably would not have responded to that particular question with it, however, but that's just me. :)
Don't know the sentimental fluff reference.
I don't know the source of "There can be only one", although it does sound familiar. Will someone say what the source is? I also don't recognize the fluff reference.
Mom, all will be revealed shortly.
I obviously got the "there can be only one", and might have been tempted to use it, depending on who I was talking to.
Sentimental old fluff, I didn't get without "google-fu",sadly.
Like Tam and mom, I recognize the phrase, but not the source. If I were more familiar with the phrase, I would have used it. I did not recognize "sentimental old fluff," either, though now I suspect I probably should have. I may be in the bottom 20 percentile for remembering lines, though.
The first time I noticed a generation gap between me and younger people, it was related to space. I was dating a guy who thought that going to the moon was something we used to do in the olden days but was now ancient history whereas I saw the first moon landing on TV in real time and even saw Apollo 11 in real life from my backyard (I lived in Florida). When I looked up what year that happened (1969), I realized I was only six years old at the time.
Debbie, this evening in my cold apartment I was wearing a jacket that is about the same age as my students. (Mom, the big olive green bomber jacket.) On the space front, I don't think many of my cohort would remember the Challenger disaster in 1986.
I estimate that about 61% of my movie line references are from Groucho or Alice in Wonderland. I stumped rvman over Thanksgiving while walking in the park next to a babbling brook with "I could listen to a babbling brook and hear a song that I could understand. I keep wishing it could be that way..." I don't think Bell and Leo would go for the bit about "cats and rabbits...would be dressed in shoes and hats and trousers" though.
In any event, well-played, my friends.
Obviously, it had to be said, and immediately. What else could you do?
Cartaufalous, I'm glad somebody understands the utter necessity of the thing.
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