The references...
Mar. 14th, 2006 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanEtaoin shrdlu: These are the first few letters of an alphabet (including the space) set into frequency of use for English. Not coincidentally, it's also the sequence of the first line of keys on a linotype machine. Back in the days when newspapers were put together by linotype, the operators would use that line both as a test of the machine, and also the way to finish out a line where they had made an error. Since it was a very obvious set, the compositors would pull the error lines before they actually got into the paper... except that sometimes they missed.
Mud, mud, glorious mud: The chorus of "The Hippopotamus Song" by Flanders and Swann. Flanders and Swann were two English gentlemen who wrote, and performed many wonderfully silly (and occasionally pointed) songs around the middle of the last century. Their signature tune was the Hippopotamus Song, and they always encouraged the audience to join in... Occasionally in Russian or Tongan...
Klaatu Barada Nikto: The most important piece of dialogue from a wonderful Sci Fi movie of the fifties called "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It also makes an appearance in "Army of Darkness"...
Poisoning pigeons in the park: Another silly song, this time from Tom Lehrer, who was America's answer to people like Flanders and Swann.
Once there was a shaggy dog: Shaggy dog stories are a kind of a joke where the setup goes on and on and on and on and the punchline is... well... let's just say that a very good teller of shaggy dog stories spends a lot of time sleeping in trees, out of reach of the angry mobs.
Beans in your ears: Still another silly song, this one learned from the radio in my giddy youth. It starts out "My mommy said not to put beans in my ears" and goes downhill from there.
I'm not making this up, you know: There may be other sources, but for me this is the line that breaks me in half when I'm listening to Anna Russell's wonderful explanation of the Ring of the Nibelung.
I went to sleep with gum in my mouth: *blush* The corrected text is the first line of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst.
Some are boojums: From "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll
My object all sublime: is the first line of the Mikado's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's masterpiece "The Mikado".
If there's a demand, I'll try to find links. When I recover from the hordes of children that were at the library today anyway...
ETA:
11: Five is right out! And oh, yes... Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
Mud, mud, glorious mud: The chorus of "The Hippopotamus Song" by Flanders and Swann. Flanders and Swann were two English gentlemen who wrote, and performed many wonderfully silly (and occasionally pointed) songs around the middle of the last century. Their signature tune was the Hippopotamus Song, and they always encouraged the audience to join in... Occasionally in Russian or Tongan...
Klaatu Barada Nikto: The most important piece of dialogue from a wonderful Sci Fi movie of the fifties called "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It also makes an appearance in "Army of Darkness"...
Poisoning pigeons in the park: Another silly song, this time from Tom Lehrer, who was America's answer to people like Flanders and Swann.
Once there was a shaggy dog: Shaggy dog stories are a kind of a joke where the setup goes on and on and on and on and the punchline is... well... let's just say that a very good teller of shaggy dog stories spends a lot of time sleeping in trees, out of reach of the angry mobs.
Beans in your ears: Still another silly song, this one learned from the radio in my giddy youth. It starts out "My mommy said not to put beans in my ears" and goes downhill from there.
I'm not making this up, you know: There may be other sources, but for me this is the line that breaks me in half when I'm listening to Anna Russell's wonderful explanation of the Ring of the Nibelung.
I went to sleep with gum in my mouth: *blush* The corrected text is the first line of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst.
Some are boojums: From "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll
My object all sublime: is the first line of the Mikado's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's masterpiece "The Mikado".
If there's a demand, I'll try to find links. When I recover from the hordes of children that were at the library today anyway...
ETA:
11: Five is right out! And oh, yes... Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
