Actual conversation with my mother

[conuly]

Mom: ...and after all, 100 years ago a marriage between an Irish Catholic and a Jew was considered a racially mixed marriage. I think there was a play about that...
Me: There was, Abie's Irish Rose, which was popular enough to spawn a sequel. The couple had twins.
Mom: HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? THIS IS NOT NORMAL TO KNOW!

Honestly, Mommy, you're the one who brought it up!

And the answer is I know about it the same way I knew about Chekov's Gun when a cabbie brought it up a few weeks prior: TvTropes. So now you know! (I tried telling her that, but I'm not sure she's ever been on TvTropes herself, so....)

Comments

[longmagpieroads]

My mother and I have similar conversations. :)

[smile_n_cuddle]

That's hilarious!!! :D

[zesty_pinto]

The Cracked podcast mentioned how every new generation is 3 to 5 point smarter than the previous one by average. You could tell her that, give her a playful wink, and then laugh about it over coffee?

[zesty_pinto]

This does remind me how erudite AV Club is though, as Chekov's gun and other tropey terms seem to get liberal mention in their reviews, even if it is to describe what junk food you just fed your eyes.

[conuly]

The Flynn Effect?

It IS true that the tests have to be continually renormed because of it, but it's still not clear what, exactly, IQ tests measure. We know they darn well measure *something*. And it correlates with a lot of other things we can measure. But....

[zesty_pinto]

I'm not the biggest subscriber towards IQ either, but I do find that the correlations do show in how the culture they are immersed in is just more and more intuitive. It could be argued that it's the tools of our culture that make the transition easier, but I can't help but think there's some weight to it when we currently have a generation of adults that seem to be reinforced to constantly think outside of the box when it comes to small businesses and the like.

[archangelbeth]

TVTropes is wonderful, even if one does tend to need to have a timer on the rope to pull one out...

[conuly]

Sooner or later somebody is going to link to XKCD, so it might as well be me now.

[archangelbeth]

*cackle* YES!

[fred_mouse]

I made the 'mistake' of talking about TVTropes with my now 19 y.o., and they regale me with all sorts of random Stuff as a result (and, for some reason, they are using it as one of their techniques for finding fiction).

In Australia, I know that even unto the 1950s, people could get disowned in the case of Protestant/Catholic marriages, and that some of this stems from the Catholic==Irish/Protestant==English&etc divide and associated racism.

[conuly]

I have found a lot of new fiction via TvTropes, actually.

[fred_mouse]

I had not known that this was a thing! I wish I'd realised when I went to a con panel on 'where do people find new fic' recently, because no-one else brought it up.

[pipibluestockin]

I come from one of those split families - my grandmother's generation only got together for funerals.

[fred_mouse]

:{

There was a really interesting two-part radio documentary on it on the A(ustralian)BC a few years ago. I had only known little bits of the history -- I hadn't really understood how divisive it could be. Even details like job advertisements saying 'Catholics need not apply' were new to me.

[larryhammer]

I too have found lots of good new stuff through TVTropes.

[fred_mouse]

:}

Three people! I'm obviously going to have to explore this further. When my assignments are all in...

[conuly]

By "explore further" I hope you don't mean "browse TV Tropes in hopes of finding something new to read/watch", because while we've all been successful that way, you must know that you'll never come out the same.

[larryhammer]

*wanders off humming "Into the Woods"*

[fred_mouse]

Well, yes, but as it is I haven't had the time to risk it :}

[gingicat]

Well, send her the link, and she won't bother you for months?

[conuly]

She doesn't bother me - and anyway, even if I did, she'd just want to talk to me about it, so same diff.

(My mother, before the cancer, was also in the habit of calling me up and asking me random trivia questions. I asked her once, and she told me she was trying to prove to her coworkers that I know everything. She cheats, though. She only asks questions to which I know the answer! So I get questions about "which animal saved the city of Rome" (geese, obviously) but not about which music star won the, um, the award for music or whatever last year.)

[plicease]

Oh no I've wasted my day again...