Fings wot 30-somethings 'ave 'eard of and 20-somethings 'aven't.

[philmophlegm]

This is based on a wide-ranging discussion at work over the last two days. The 20-somethings concerned are university-educated* professionals.


The Basque Country
Real tennis
Lord Mountbatten
Any British prime minister before Margaret Thatcher, with the exception of Winston Churchill
Any US president before Bill Clinton, with the exception of FDR
Eric Clapton
Carlos Santana
Laurence Olivier
Alec Guinness
John Gielgud
Kim Basinger



* Or at least they went to university. God** knows what they were educated in if they've never heard of Alec Guinness.
** AKA the sixth entry on this list of course.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I've heard of all those, and I'm not a 30-something ... ;-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to say "the over thirties" since our sample population only went up to two 39-year-olds, but my guess was that 40-somethings and 50-somethings would be similar to 30-somethings with a drop off after that point.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Which degree courses cover Alec Guinness??

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Surely the point of a university education is exposure to wider learning outside of the syllabus of your chosen course?

"Which degree courses cover Alec Guinness??"
Cinema Arts, Penn State
http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Von_Gunden__Kenneth.html

[skordh.livejournal.com]

I had to look up Carlos Santana. Does that mean I have the mind of a 20 something?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

No.

But it does mean you lack a proper musical education! I suspect a misspent youth...

Now go and do some homework - I suggest starting here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTcAw_nktO4&feature=related

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Being serious, maybe I was being harsh on them. You were being honest, but other people may have seen this post and not known who Kim Basinger was or Jim Callaghan or Jimmy Carter or John Gielgud perhaps without mentioning it.

It's tricky this - I suspect everyone knows things that they just assume everyone knows. If you were to add all these together then you probably get a statistic like 60% (or more) of people don't know things that everyone is supposed to know.

This would explain phenomena like cartoon bulls with udders or confusion between apes and monkeys.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I didn't know who Carlos Santana was either.

All the other things on the list I can certainly understand as belonging to a certain period (though really the trio of classic/Shakespearean actors were at their prime before our time, but I guess things sort of linger on for a certain while afterwards, ever discounting the Star Wars effect). However I am puzzled by the first two. Okay, I guess the Basque Country was maybe more in the news then and not now. But real tennis??? How is this something familiar to 30-somethings but not to 20-somethings? If I associate it with any period at all it is with Henry VIII!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the list would have looked like when we were 20-somethings.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting question.

Maybe the 40-somethings, 50-somethings and 60-somethings on my friends list could comment on things they know that 30-somethings don't...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

... except that I might try to come up with something for this (except that I am only ?6 years older than you).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hah. I was just starting to type a similar comment, when I saw yours. So now I won't ...

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Great minds :-)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

If you watched the quiz Pointless you would be amazed by the ordinary, everyday knowledge that people who are either at University or are University graduates (they claim) or who are teachers do not know. I mean, I carefully avoid pop music made any later than 1975, but at least I've heard of some Madonna and Coldplay hits...

There were a couple of youngish English teachers on last season who provoke comments on the Points of View messageboard about their astonishing ignorance of their own subject. I mean, it's not as if Pointless was difficult and you are given choices in the first two rounds.

[andrewducker]

Born in 1972, and am thus 39.

I know all of those names. But I don't know much about them.

I remember Mountbatten's death being a thing, but I wasn't really aware of it.
Clapton and Olivier didn't do much exciting that I was aware of either.

Alec Guiness was in Star Wars.

Margaret Thatcher came to office when I was 7, so I have no awareness of PMs from before her.

So I'd say that you were looking at a list of things that 30-somethings have _heard_ of, 40-somethings are actually aware of.

Apart from Kim Basinger, of course. She was in Batman :->

[king-of-wrong.livejournal.com]

I was going to say Heathers, but twentysomethings probably haven't even heard of Winona Ryder...