Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 February 19

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February 19

Washington National's (MLB) retired numbers

The numbers retired indicates the number "10" twice. That would seem to be an error. If it was retired for the first one listed, then it wouldn't be available to be reassigned and retired a second time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.223.81.187 (talk) 19:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be the source of that list [1]. It also lists the number 10 as retired twice, so the error (if any) is coming from the Washington Nationals, and was not introduced by Wikipedia. RudolfRed (talk) 20:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Both Dawson and Staub were players with the Montreal Expos before the Expos became the Nationals—see Montreal Expos#Retired numbers. The likely explanation is that both players wore the number 10 before the Expos decided to honor either by retiring his number; thus, the team honored both by retiring the number in the name of each player. Deor (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

And indeed, if you look at Rusty Staub#Retirement and Honors and Andre Dawson#Accomplishments, you'll see that the number was retired for Staub in 1993 and for Dawson in 1997, after both players' careers were over. There's no reason why Dawson (an Expo from 1976 to 1986) couldn't have worn the same number as Staub, since it hadn't been retired yet. Deor (talk) 21:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

It is quite possible to retire a number for multiple players, and the Expos/Nationals would not be the first team to do so. The Boston Celtics retired #18 for both Dave Cowens and Jim Loscutoff, Loscutoff has a seperate banner at the TD Banknorth Garden which reads "Loscy" among the retired numbers. The New York Yankees retired #8 for both Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra. The Chicago Cubs retired #31 for both Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux. There's many more, but I won't list them all here. --Jayron32 00:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Idiocracy and South Carolina

In one scene of the movie "Idiocracy", a person shouts "SOUTH CAROLINA! WHAT'S UP!" out of the blue. What is this a reference to? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xcvxvbxcdxcvbd (talk • contribs) 22:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Is this pronunciation of "there" Southern?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=489pO9q8guA#t=53s — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xcvxvbxcdxcvbd (talk • contribs) 22:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

It sounds stereotypically "hillbilly" to pronounce "there" as "they-yer." (Like the Cleatus character on The Simpsons.) Which is kind of odd because it's a song about teenagers from Los Angeles. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Frank Zappa was from Baltimore, where they speak a variety of English that lies somewhere between Mid-Atlantic English and typical Southern English. It could be just his native accent. Or it could be a deliberate prounciation to fit the meter of the song (making it two syllables instead of one). It's hard to say a single word out of context is directly of one dialect. There's also a LOT of very different dialects that come from the Southern U.S. Some shiboleths of many Southern accents are to make a monophthong out of a diphthong, this "fire" becomes pronounced very much like "far"; and certain diphthongs become two monophthongs, thus "Soy" can rhyme more with "Buoy" than with "boy" (check Alton Brown's pronounciation). So, perhaps that's what's going on here. But it is hard to say one way or the other. --Jayron32 00:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds to me emphasized to rhyme with 'hair'. Pfly (talk) 05:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)