Talk:You kids get off my lawn!

Gran Torino
Isn't this the starting theme of the award-winning film, Gran Torino?  Will Beback   talk    08:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Right! Added that. Herostratus (talk) 13:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well done. I hadn't seen that quote.   Will Beback    talk    00:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Herostratus (talk) 13:51, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

re parking tanks on lawn
I have some recent examples of this use, e.g. And here's even an American use: and there are some others, but all I have for an actual ref is this forum at Word Origins which of course is not reliable and not very useful. So still looking for reliable source for that. Herostratus (talk) 13:51, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Why Google is parking its tanks on Microsoft's lawn" (The Guardian)
 * "Mancini has parked his tanks on the United lawn" (Daily Mail)
 * "Mining lobbyist: ‘The president has parked his tanks on our front lawn.’" (Think Progress)

Suburban house with lawn
Is that picture really neccessary? :D --87.122.63.28 (talk) 17:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it might actually be helpful in illustrating the situation for readers unfamiliar with American suburbia. I grew up in a suburban part of the UK and if I wasn't already familiar with the appearance/layout of American suburbs I'd be slightly confused at this article because over here lawns are also common in suburban homes, but they're typically at the back of a property, surrounded by a wall, fence or hedge and typically bordered only by other gardens and accessible from the street only via private driveways or even through a garage or the house itself. All of which means random teenagers on your lawn would be (hopefully) less common but also more of a clear and serious case of trespassing, which would be cause for concern rather than humour. Whereas in America it can be as simple as someone cutting the corner when walking down the street and fairly harmless. The picture effectively illustrates for anyone unfamiliar with the situation how neighbourhood kids on your lawn could be a common occurrence and also a fairly minor issue that most people might just shrug off. 82.68.159.246 (talk) 14:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Original research
An editor tagged this as original research. I'm not seeing that and I removed the tag. There are like 18 refs and so on. There are some leaps in reasonig but they are small and unexceptionable and true, I think. I could be wrong about this though. If there is original research, I'd like to hear more details about specific problems and solutions. Herostratus (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * -- Some leaps in reasoning? Some of the stuff in the article is fanciful personal theorising, strung across a few factual points. If the theory is true, how come very similar phenomena to "get off my lawn" exist in other cultures, at other times? Seems to me that it is merely another example of the universal phenomenon of the generation gap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.42.229.207 (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, of course it is. I'm sure similar phenomena exists in other cultures at other times. This article is about a particular manifestation of that in a particular place and time, with exposition on why this particular phrase takes the form it does. It could have been that "You kids mind your manners!" or whatever could have caught on as a catchphrase, in which case the article would be different. But it didn't, so it's not. Herostratus (talk) 11:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * While this article is not lacking for references, the "Background" section is assembled in a manner that creates a narrative chosen by the original author of the article. That assembled narrative could be viewed by some editors as original research. While I'm sure the "Background" section is a well-intentioned attempt to make this article more than just a stub, it really isn't about the phrase itself. Also, the intro refers to "older conservative bourgeoisie as a class." While bourgeoisie is certainly a social class, conservatives are not a class, nor are the elderly. Thus, I would argue that the "older conservative bourgeoisie" may be better defined as a demographic group than a social class. --JHP (talk) 03:34, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It is original research, but it's not to make any point. If you look at WP:OR, what we're mostly concerned with is stuff like "Smith is sometimes called a great team leader, but overall his teams have a .428 winning percentage". Let's assume that both these are true and there are good refs showing that (that several people with sufficient standing and notability have called him a great team leader or near equivalent, and that his teams have a .428 winning percentage). They're both true and ref'd, but we can't write sentences like that (or even "Smith has been called a great team leader. Overall his teams have a .428 winning percentage"). It'd be original research in the bad sense: the implied point is that maybe he's not that great a leader. (If some notable pundit(s) had made the same point, that'd be different and we could include the sentence.)


 * But I'm not making any point. I'm just providing background. It's probably true, it's not contentious and I'm not making a point. And I've provided some refs, granted not supporting the overall thesis but at least supporting the individual facts that lead to the thesis. So I claim a lot more leeway. "Original research" should not be a shibboleth IMO. Instead think about the intent of the proscription re OR. We do want to be careful and conservative about any OR, but I think I've been reasonably careful and conservative.


 * As to "class", I was just using it in the sense of "group" rather than a strict economic or socioeconomic sense. It could be changed to "group" with no loss of meaning. Herostratus (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Popularization in 2008?
Personally, I don't believe I heard this phrase before 2008. Gran Torino, which uses the phrase prominently, came out in 2008. The ageist attacks against John McCain on left-wing websites in 2008 seemed to really popularize the phrase on the Internet. I notice that virtually none of this article's references about the actual phrase itself date back before 2008. (This article's pre-2008 references seem to be about lawns in general, not about the actual phrase.) This article itself did not exist prior to 2008, even though Wikipedia was founded in 2001. If this phrase was common prior to 2008, I recommend adding some earlier references about the use of the phrase. If it wasn't common before 2008, this article shouldn't be giving the false impression that it was common decades earlier. --JHP (talk) 02:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I always thought Letterman started it, back in the last century. If Letterman used it much, it would have almost automatically gained some currency. I don't have a ref for that though, although Letterman was a major TV personality so there must be something somewhere. Herostratus (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

"Obstreperous?"
"Obstreperous?" Seriously?

albabe -  The Writer /Artist Formally Known as  Al Gordon 21:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Bourgeoisie?
"Bourgeoisie?" Seriously?

(Sorry to steal your style, but it fits, and I found it humorous.) I removed that classist reference due to it being unsourced, unfounded and untrue. The phrase is as middle class as "Chevrolet", if anything, the upper middle class would be afraid of confrontation and retribution by the ruffians, and instead would call the security company for their gated community, who would send out the "rent a cop" that drives around in that neighborhood, so he will deal with it by waving a flashlight at the kids and telling them to go home, while the teenagers shuffle off, mocking the "rent a cop" at a volume level that he almost and/or barely can hear. So in short, stereotyping is bad. Thank you. Dennis - 2&cent; 21:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

generational misunderstanding ?
David Letterman is a baby boomer. If he popularized this meme in the '80s, he wasn't mocking the old people of the '80s, who were his own parents, he was mocking the old people of his youth, who would say such things to him and to his friends.

And accordingly, he was talking about a much different America from what we have now. Specifically, I was never under the impression he was talking about teenagers. He was talking about the Leave It to Beaver era, when small children ran around unsupervised, often in large groups. Wasn't he?

For example, here's a link and another link to Roger Ebert's personal testimony of routinely trespassing as a suburban child. Foogus (talk) 00:30, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Dennis the Menace and grumpy Mr. Wilson
I automatically assumed this meme derived from grumpy Mr. Wilson in the Dennis the Menace comics, who was forever grumping at Dennis, most stereotypically by shooing him off his lawn.

I can't find anything concrete on this, so can't take it further, but I'm reasonably confident that it warrants a mention on the page.

--Nat (talk) 05:08, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

1996
It was 1996, when Kenneth Clarke said, "Tell your kids to get their scooters off my lawn." ref It was 1993, when John Major said, "Get your tractors off off our lawn." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.235.54.61 (talk) 23:33, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You're correct. Fixed. Herostratus (talk) 04:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

LOL
How is this an article in an encyclopedia? Permission to add it to WP:UA? Oh, after checking it's already there, this is fantastic...Americanfreedom (talk) 14:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)