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Shave and a Haircut

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Re: Shave and a Haircut

#31

Post by harimau777 »

dustincoates wrote: post #2

> "Two bits" is a term in the United States and Canada for 25 cents I don't know about Canada, but the "is" should be a "was" unless there are contexts I don't know about. It did lead me down a little deeper the Wikipedia rabbit hole, and apparently: > The New York Stock Exchange continued to list stock prices in $1⁄8 until June 24, 1997, at which time it started listing in $1⁄16. It did not fully implement decimal l…

Fun fact: The quarter being worth two bits is part of the same "split a dollar up into eights" system that resulted in Spanish dollars being called a "pieces of eight".

A Spanish dollar was worth eight Spanish reals. So a quarter of a dollar would be worth two Spanish reals; hence two bits. Presumably the terminology stuck around even after the switch to US dollars.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#33

Post by bregma »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #29
pavel_lishin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely heard expressions that go something like, "Why you no-good, two-bit etc etc!", and never connected that to this until now.

Me neither! I always tentatively assumed it's about computer bits, where two bits would be "not much", and that somehow it entered into normie vernacular. So, TIL that this is another case of society and culture in the 19th and 20th century US evolving primarily around the stock exchange :o.

TIL Yosemite Sam was the rootinest, tootinest computer geek this side of the Pecos.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#34

Post by chasd00 »

mkmk wrote: post #7

> The former prisoner of war and U.S. Navy seaman Doug Hegdahl reports fellow U.S. captives in the Vietnam War would authenticate a new prisoner's U.S. identity by using "Shave and a Haircut" as a shibboleth, tapping the first five notes against a cell wall and waiting for the appropriate response. With the mass export of western culture, I wonder if there are any songs, tunes, or patterns like this that would still…

ive also heard using the question "who was mickey's old girlfriend?" referring to Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#35

Post by mattbee »

jodacola wrote: post #12
miniatureape wrote: post #5

A made a little “secret knock” authentication demo. Shave and a haircut is obviously the secret knock used in the demo https://miniatureape.github.io/prohibition/ (Nb: I’m sure this doesn’t work great on some devices)

Fun! Over a decade ago, my boss and I added a secret knock using Shave and a Haircut just like this to our wayfinder product, a large touchscreen app used on trade show floors. It’s how we got into our admin to maintenance them at the shows and was useful if something was wrong with the onscreen keyboard (or we didn’t have our own keyboard to attach).

I used it for a silly credits screen in football trivia game - summer 2002 I could knock on the screen of a many pub trivia machine to make it show my name :)

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#36

Post by harimau777 »

neom wrote: post #19
dustincoates wrote: post #2

> "Two bits" is a term in the United States and Canada for 25 cents I don't know about Canada, but the "is" should be a "was" unless there are contexts I don't know about. It did lead me down a little deeper the Wikipedia rabbit hole, and apparently: > The New York Stock Exchange continued to list stock prices in $1⁄8 until June 24, 1997, at which time it started listing in $1⁄16. It did not fully implement decimal l…

2 bit is still used in Canada as an indicator of something less than good, otherwise unused.

In the US it would still be fairly common for someone to know that "two bits" can mean a quarter, but it's not used much in common conversation.

I don't know if this is just me, but I particularly associate it with a purposely colloquial or "old timey" register of speech. In my head I can envision a carny with a Foghorn Leghorn accent selling me a ticket to the Ferris wheel, "That'll be two bits, son".

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#37

Post by rsaz »

Wow, so this is the where Nardwuar's "Doot doola doot do..." comes from! I always wondered how it was so ubiquitous that even people unfamiliar with his interviews knew how to respond. Very interesting.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#38

Post by aeortiz »

weinzierl wrote: post #26

Related: "na-na na-na na-na" https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/na-na_na-na_na-na I always wondered if anyone else noticed, how the Jackson 5 smuggled it into ABC. https://youtu.be/ho7796-au8U?t=01m24s

Have you heard it in Queen's "We are the champions"?

"No time for losers, for we are the Champions" ... etc

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#39

Post by harimau777 »

When I was in high school jazz band, there was a similar lick that came at the end of a lot of songs "what makes your big head so hard".

Presumably it originally came from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldonia. However, I'm having trouble finding references to it's use as a riff/lick. So maybe it was something that was specific to our band?

Edit: An example of this lick would be the end of the Beatle's "I want to hold your hand": https://youtu.be/v1HDt1tknTc?t=137

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#40

Post by eikaramba »

i have a little IOT device[0] which has a starting animation with LEDS when you reset it. i used that tune for the LED animation (without sound) just the timings. funny enough i never knew where it came from just that it was in my head and always associated with looney tunes. Finally i know its origin :)

[0] https://notific.at

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