Thread Devoted to the Solution of the Mysterious Origins of the phrase "That'll be a Quarter, Dave"

Oboewan

Officially moving this discussion off of the Site Inspection Thread so @Angelastic, @srdownie, and others can engage their little grey cells to solve this mystery.... aaaaaaaand... go!

Here is a link to the original discussion:

 

 

 

BrettGlass

You're going to draw and quarter Dave?

Angelastic

The first two posts of the phrase didn't have the comma, but had a comma added later. Was the comma supposed to be there from the start (in which case it's weird that the second one had no comma after the first one got one) or is the transition from commaless to commatose a clue?

Oboewan

Here's a synopsis of relevant information:

@Angelastic wrote "I wonder if we can rename the cupcake corner Robert Sea Baker."

to which I replied " I heartily second that one. That'll be a quarter, Dave"

@Angelastic continued "I'm still puzzling over the meaning of 'That'll be a quarter Dave'. Here are the possibilities I've come up with:

(and after a "," was added to my original post I believe she's narrowed down her possibilities)

(with the addition of a comma) Dave should pay twenty-five cents"

@srdownie said "Telephone baby = Micro-phone "

which prompted me to  reply "That'll be a quarter, Dave!"  and I added "I also think that either we should table this discussion or move it outside of the Site Inspection thread..... "

@srdownie replied  with "Are you saying this discussion deserves better quarters?"

which prompted me once again to say "That'll be another quarter, Dave."

*Isildur42 is also familiar with the phrase*

 

The clues are there... can YOU piece them together?

 

 

 

 

 

Oboewan

@Angelastic given the wealth of possibilities you'd brought up, I felt that I needed to rectify my original posting of the phrase by added a comma.   They should all have had commas, but I hadn't realized my own punctuational  problem until your posting of possibiliites.

 

Angelastic

Well, we only need one more quarter and we're done. Unless Dave has something like a swear jar, where he has to put money every time he laughs at a pun. Wait… if @isildur42 understands, does that mean Dave is buying hug tags (which used to be a quarter, but aren't they more expensive now?) for people who make bad puns? Who is this Dave guy, anyway?

I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that unless you pay me twenty-five cents.

AuntiLaura

Dave's not here, man.

Oboewan

so close......

srdownie

I like the quarter we've provided for "quarter" right here in these virtual quarters.

The only Dave I'm concerned about created this.

Angelastic

Well, you say it when somebody makes a pun. And I've seen 90s (okay, 60s, but I saw it in the 80s or 90s) TV Batman. So perhaps what you're saying is that pun
makes the cut. Now, who makes cuts? A butcher. A good cut is a butcher’s treat,
which sounds like a butcher street, give or take a little voicing. But ‘butcher’ is the verb ‘to butcher’ in
the present tense. What will it be in the future? That’ll be a butchered
street. What's a way to be butchered? Quartered. And another kind of
street? An avenue. So that’ll be a quartered ave. All it takes is a small mistake in
writing it, such as has already been demonstrated with the comma debacle, and that
becomes, ‘That’ll be a quarter dave’. Then somebody understands it as asking Dave for a quarter, and the punctuation gets added. Simple!

But I feel like the word 'table' might be involved somehow.

Oboewan

I think it's safe to say that Isildur42 actually coined the phrase......

Doh!   That'll be a quarter, Dave.

I think you've uncoverd the trigger mechanism for the phrase.... now you just need to find the missing link....

Oboewan.... Isildur42....  A guy named Dave........

 

 

 

Angelastic

It looks like it must be about a quarter dollar, or that wouldn't have been a pun. I hope it isn't a Star Wars reference.

So, in the phrase, is 'Dave':

1) referring to a real person
2) referring to a fictional character
3) not referring to anyone in particular
4) not here, man.

?

And apart from quarters, is any knowledge of other North American curiosities required to decode the phrase?

srdownie

I'd buy that for a dollar!

Angelastic

So would Scooter Picnic!

srdownie

I'd buy "That'll be a quarter" for a dollar, @Angelastic!

Angelastic

Do you think Dave pointed at a shiny thing and said he'd buy that for a dollar, and then somebody told him that the shiny thing was a quarter, and he wasn't a very smart investor? Losses were very high for the first quarter of the financial year, Dave.

Oboewan

*Hint of the Day*   Dave is a Sea Monkey

Angelastic

Hmm… I can only think of David sea monkeys, but maybe they are called Dave too.

Oboewan

I'm pretty sure that all Daves are Davids but not all Davids are Daves

*I'm including Daveys in this generalization as they are probably all diminutives of David*

autojim

Well, there's this.

Doctor_E

Quite possibly this is the same David I knew as an undergrad, who incessantly made puns. Implementing a "pun jar" might have possibly worked as a deterrent. So is this a reference to Dave who is always making puns?

srdownie

Instead of "pun jar," I'd recommend PunJab. For example, the English were so thoroughly PunJabbed by 1947 that they ran away! Mother England was out Punned!

Hmm. Come to think of it, a well-regarded Jabber of Puns was named Muhammed "Dave" Iqbal!

Oboewan

@Doctor_E ; yes.. yes it is.....

Angelastic

Ah, I see. Over on the xkcd Time thread, this phrase would be represented as the following animated gif:

simplytracy

Dave is a real person.  This is his 4th year on the cruise. Geektalk (a monthly book/gaming club) is hosted at Dave's house and Dave has a penchant for telling bad jokes.  Thus there is a jar at his house for you to pay a quarter to make fun of him or if he tells a bad joke.