Powet Alphabet: Q is for Quotes

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Boy us geeks sure like to quote stuff. Take any random message board, comment section or chat room(do people still use those?) and you’ll see conversation frequently interrupted statements like “War not makes one great!” or “Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam!?” or “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die”

Yes, quotes are part of our language. It might be a lazy way of communicating, but quotes allow us to shout our interests at others.

There are of course different types of quotes, but all used for the same purpose: a geek trying to be funny. There will never be anything epic or inspiring done as a result of a geek quoting Aragorn’s speech from Return Of The King for example. But when used in line at a gaming convention, or in front of a crowd at a comic store, it might be funny.

Kevin Smith helped popularize this by including out of context quotes from cult movies Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, and others in his movies. Beginning with Clerks, phrases like “No time for love, Dr Jones” re-entered the pop culture lexicon. Smith continued into Mallrats and Chasing Amy, and by the time his fourth film Dogma was nearing release, internet sites with early reviews like Ain’t It Cool News made a point of mentioning that Dogma did references to Star Wars included. While Smith certainly wasn’t the first to pull a quote from another movie in his own, its rare that a movie that is not satire does so, and have the characters so enthusiastically aware of their reference to the movie.

There are cult classic movies with great one liners worth repeating. Caddyshack is immediately notable for one liners, and any golf fan would likely find themselves repeating a line during a day at the links.

Of course some movies get the spirit of a moment so well, you can’t help but hang on every word and repeat to others. “Glengarry Glen Ross,” a play by David Mamet was adapted into a movie with an all star cast. A scene was added with a new character played by Alec Baldwin that has become a definitive speech for any person working in sales. Chants like “Coffee is for closers” “Third prize is you’re fired” and “Fuck you, thats my name”

The scene isn’t really funny, its brutal to the characters in the movie, but anyone who’s had a sales manager breathe down their neck, its hilarious.

So take your favorite movie. Deconstruct the dialog. Repeat at the most inappropriate time. This is what we do. We are geeks, and we’re not ashamed. If we can’t be creative, we champion the creativity of others work whenever possible.