Western Cultural References (Or where did THAT come from?)

[BenODen]

This morning I heard a radio segment that made me decide to start this thread for sure. The whole idea started with one of Selma's Post:

Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail is one of those movies you have to watch, if only so you get the barrage of cultural references. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Run away, run away. Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of elderberries. Coconut shells. Bring me a shrubbery.)

Other cultural references come from The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather, from TV comes Star Trek. (Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain, to the mattresses, beam me up Scotty.)

I'm sure there will be fifty-nine or sixty essential things I've missed. I depend on the rest of this unruly crowd to point out where I've left things out.

OT can chant entire scenes from the Holy Grail - his appearance with the cast is particularly appropriate.

So, this should be fun. To improve our post counts, feel free to adhere to a one post "one source" format, or not...

I'll throw this open to all the phrases that are noteworthy, either because they're particularly pithy, (Ask not what your country etc), particularly obtuse (Who's on First?) or said by some fictional character and discussions of the same... Basically, anything to do with phrases that are used in every day life that we've picked up from elsewhere...

[BenODen]

A source of a bunch of familiar phrases! Who knew?

These came up in reference to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (it has a web site, surprise! http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/), a contest for the most over the top lines of fiction, like:
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"

Stuart Vasepuru
Edinburgh, Scotland

Oh and this one, sure to become a staple of american culture soon:
It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.

Derek Fisher
Ottawa, ON


Any way, 850 KOA talk show host Mike Rosen rattled some real Bulwer-Lytton quotes off that I had no idea were his... I know I'm missing a few, cuz I was driving at the time, but these are pretty big ones:

It was a dark and stormy night... - _Paul Clifford_
The pen is mightier than the sword - _Richelieu_, act ii. sc. 2
Genius does what it must, talent does what it can. - _Last Words_

He's a very pithy guy. I ran across this one that I didn't know before, but I'll have to use it cuz it's true:
The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells. - _Eugene Aram_ Book i. Chap. vii.

And another interesting one:
Fate laughs at probabilities. - _Eugene Aram_ Book i. Chap. x.

And, breaking the one post one topic, another well known phrase's source which I ran across while looking for more Lytton quotes:

Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing.. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn. Part iii. The Theologian’s Tale: Elizabeth. iv.

Bartleby quotations online (where I got these quotes) is vera cool:
http://www.bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/w ... nFqtqdcWXX

[BenODen]

There are other winners in that contest for overly descriptive prose that I can not resist:

His mistake, Shut-eye McBlamaway reflected, was not in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers on the high country, but in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers who had just left the set of a Sergio Leone shoot, and were thus equipped with those guns that never run out of ammunition.

Samuel Goldstein
Los Angeles, CA

The McCain boys strode off proudly to fight in the Civil War, one for the Union and one for the Confederacy, neither of them giving a single thought to who would play them in the television movie of their story, which would be decided more than a hundred years later by 20-something casting agents who kept getting the Civil War and World War II mixed up.

Carmen Fought
Diamond Bar, CA

A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary's cheek onto the sidewalk, then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with its state-of-the-art container-freight processing facilities.

Bill Mac Iver
Berkeley, CA

Lisa moved like a cat, not the kind of cat that moves with a slinky grace but more like the kind that always falls off the book shelf when he's washing himself and then gets all mad at you like it's your fault (which it wasn't although it probably was kind of mean to laugh at him like that), although on the bright side, she hardly ever attacked Ricky's toes in his sleep.

Debra Allen
Wichita Falls, TX

As Johann looked out across the verdant Iowa River valley, and beyond to the low hills capped by the massive refrigerator manufacturing plant, he reminisced on the history of the great enterprise from its early days, when he and three other young men, all of differing backgrounds, had only their dream of bringing refrigeration to America's heartland to sustain them, to the present day, where they had become the Midwest's foremost group of refrigerator magnates.

Dick Davis
Circle Pines, MN

And as a crazy finale, that I perhaps should have resisted:
Despite the vast differences in their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.

Dennis Barry
Dothan, AL

[barfle]

Between Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra, there were plenty of bizarre baseball quotes.

"OK, you guys, line up alphabetically by height."

"When you're out there on the mound, remember the three Cs: Control, Confidence, and Poise."

[BenODen]

Ohman yeah, good ole Yogi, I think he's gotta be WAY up there in influence!

"That place? It's so crowded nobody goes there any more!"
" It's deja vu all over again"
" When you come to a fork in the road....Take it "
"Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical."
"A nickel isn't worth a dime today."
"It ain't over 'til it's over"

What a guy.

[BigJon@Work]

Don't forget Dizzy Dean.

[piqaboo]

refrigerator magnates

Oy!

[Shapley]

Somewhere in my basement I have a collection of books by Richard Brautigan. He wrote short stories, books and poems from the '60s through the '80s. Some of his books, such as Trout Fishing in America and [/i]Rommel Drives on into Egypt[/i] were briefly famous. They were full of 'Brautiganisms', few of which I remember any more.

Some, which may be influenced by the effects of poor memory, include:

"The rat looked up at me as if to say "When my mother was young she sang just like Deanna Durbin", and then resumed eating his fallen brethren.

The outhouse stood there with its door open as if to say: "The old man who built me crapped here 8,527 times. He built with me with loving care and now he's gone. I stand here as a monument to a good ass gone under. If you have to crap, go in the woods like a bear, but leave me alone."

I used to enjoy his writing, I just can't explain why.

V/R
Shapley

[BenODen]

LOL Dizzy Dean:

It puzzles me how they know what corners are good for filling stations. Just how did they know gas and oil was under there?

The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing.

Well what's wrong with ain't? And as for saying 'Rizzuto slud into second' it just ain't natural. Sounds silly to me. Slud is something more than slid. It means sliding with great effort.

[BenODen]

LOL Mr Brautigan. Now I know more about a guy I know that has that nick on a MOO (Mud Object Oriented, an early chat board/game)...

He must be an expert on projection.

[Shapley]

Trout Fishing in America is a collection of short stories that sometimes have to do with trout fishing. It was my first introduction to Brautigan, and I enjoyed it. Rommel Drives on into Egypt is a book of poetry by him. The Abortion is a novel about him taking his girlfriend to Mexico to get an abortion. It is a good book. He is probably the only person I know who can write a whole chapter about a coffee stain and make it interesting. Willard and His Bowling Trophies is probably his best novel. Revenge of the Lawn is another collection of short stories, and is probably my favourite work of his. his later works, such as The Tokyo-Montana Express left something to be desired, in my view. His other novels, In Watermelon Sugar and The Hawkline Monster are interesting. I think the former is the better of the two. I think there were also a couple of poetry collections whose names I cannot now remember. I think I had about a dozen books by him.

Some of my shipmates read them back in my Navy days, but most didn't care for his writings. To each his own, I suppose.

V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

Where did "edumacate" come from?
Wasnt it part of the ebonics drive?

[barfle]

Say what?

[Schmeelkie]

I've found lots of these can be people-specific:

from my dad:
"I-D-I-O-T"
"It's for you."
(that's the Ugly and the Good, from 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'

in reference to a good weather
"...and on that Glorious Day..."
from 'The Right Stuff'

My husband and I are forever throwing Star Wars quotes at each other.
"I'm on the leader" (often in relation lately to chasing Pumpkin)
"Well, one thing's for sure, we're all going to be a lot thinner"
"I find your lack of faith disturbing"
"Let's hope the old man got that tracker beam out of commission. OK, hit it!"

Then of course, there's Princess Bride lines:
"Stop it now, I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"As you wish"

Gotta run or I'd think up more....

[Shapley]

"Have fun storming the castle!" - The Princess Bride

"Jim! Thank God you're safe!"
"There were no dieties involved. It was my cross-circuiting to 'B' that saved the Captain." Bones and Spock on the original Star Trek series.

[BigJon@Work]

"Have fun storming the castle!" - The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a rich field.

Inigo Montoya: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Count Rugen: Stop saying that!

Vizzini: INCONCEIVABLE.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes

[Schmeelkie]

also Star Trek:
"Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a (fill in the blank)"

which was used for comic effect in an Animaniacs episode -> "Dammit Yakko, I'm a doctor not an exorcist" when the three are in a sticky situation in hell and Yakko is trying to come up with a plan - asks Wacko and Dot, then asks Bones (whose floating head appears and delivers above line if I remember correctly). OTFLOL when I first saw it.

Also Princess Bride:
"Yes I am a silly girl" - I use this all the time...

And Star Wars:
"Let go your conscious self and act on instinct"

[Haggis@wk]

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

""Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located".

James Nicoll

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Thank you, Haggis!! I need to read more of this man's work.

I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.

He's met my office

(H)umans hate to admit error even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'

He's met my cousins.

We discovered at one point that the brick wall of the pillar would hold up a sock pretty well. This led to sorting socks by putting them on the wall, which in turn led to mosaics built entirely of socks. Mission drift is a hazard in all pursuits, including doing the laundry.

I need to find a socksorting pillar

Manitoba… Not sure what to do about them. Restock the province with megafauna and encourage tourism, I think. How quickly can we breed back the saber-toothed cats?

Renewing my passport, getting a visa. Do I need shots for the Manitoba megafauna tour?

[BigJon@Work]

The man is a quote machine.

Until recently baby production was largely dependent on slave labour; as soon as women are allowed to answer the question "Would you like to squeeze as many objects the size of a watermelon out of your body as it takes to kill you?" they generally answer "No, thank you." This leads to falling birthrates everywhere women are not kept enslaved and ignorant of the alternatives.

You can buy his English language quote on a T-shirt