Talk:Let's roll

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To-do list for Let's roll: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Get references
  • Copy edit article
Priority 5  

people expect encyclopedias to be able to tell them that there is one concept with two names.

I believe quite strongly that the concept identified with "move 'zig'" is exactly as real as the concept identified with "Let's Roll" and in fact the two are the same idea expressed to two different audiences. Furthermore, I suspect that defining "Let's Roll" *as* "move 'zig'" will tend to 1. prevent people from spreading either brand of crap into other areas of wiki and 2. very much help people not familiar with English or Engrish to understand each.

Policy on viral memes ought to be established early, as with references to risk and cognitive bias, which will otherwise creep into every single article.

The concept of "viral meme" is not a mainstream academic concept, and only merits the briefest mention in an encyclopedia.

it has that now. Academics are biased against recognizing viral memes as such since their entire careers are usually based on free-riding on same... I therefore think a substantially looser academic standard should apply to this subject, which is antithetical to the ideals of academia itself, e.g. that words or phrases should mean something specific, at least within one field, and that there ought to be some controls on who can use what to mean what.
"Meme" is already treading on thin ground, but is at least well known enough to be semi-respectable. "Let's roll" isn't a concept at all--it's a phrase that has made the news recently, and it's the title of a song, both of which deserve to be covered. "Move zig" is another phrase, probably meaning more or less the same thing, but it isn't worthy of inclusion here. It isn't even a common enough idiom to be found in a dictionary--you certainly wouldn't find it, say, in a New York Times used without reference to its source. --LDC
define "worthy" - personally I think that move zig is probably not all that interesting on its own... but in context of *both* "all your base" *and* "Let's Roll" it becomes very interesting. Likewise the other phrases seem to propagate because they either had meaning at some distant point in the past when they were used very sincerely and specifically, or because they were so malformed to begin with that they had to propagate to survive at all.
Lee, I believe you are trying to overrule the Internet here... all of the phrases I listed had >1000 google hits. "all your base" had 52,000. If you accept the moral equivalence of phrases dreamed up by academics and used in newspapers with absurdities or fads that only come to mean something through usage patterns, as I do, then we need a better policy for all this.
datum: Shakespeare made up 1/4 of the words he used in his plays. obviously he was capable of doing that and having those words understood in context. I submit that if an Elizabethan audience could absorb that level of invention in language, that it is contingent on encyclopedia editors and authors to be willing at least to abstract enough to create unifying phrases without academic permission, in fields that academics are motivated to ignore.
1/4 of the words? Sure, he made up lotsa words, but this is surely hyperbole. Then again, 46% of all statistics are made up on the spot. :-) - Rootbeer 2002-04-04
In early 2002, it was ordered that one airplane in each U.S. squadron would carry an image with the words "Let's Roll".

Ordered by whom? In each U.S. _military_ squadron? What kind of image? (Painted on the fuselage? Microfilm? PNG? :-) Do we have a source for this? - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

Here is one photo: http://www.afrc.af.mil/hq/citamn/default.html --rmhermen
Thanks; I've added it to the page. - Rootbeer 2002-04-04
Todd Beamer, a passenger on the doomed United Airlines flight 93, was permitted by its hijackers to call his wife.

Was "permitted"? You mean they actually gave him permission to use his cell phone? They had no idea he might reveal that the flight was hijacted? Or didn't care?

I think it more likely that he sneaked his phone call without the hijackers' knowledge.

Unless someone shows a source proving otherwise, I'm gonna assume he sneaked the call and revise the article accordingly.

Your "assumptions," whether that he was permitted or that he sneaked are unwelcome here. I will delete any assumptions that I see. -24.215.253.143 22:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Was it his wife he called? Was it a cell phone he used? This article say that it's not. (http://www.flight93legacy.org/StoryMSNBCnodate.html) But I have no idea which version to believe, so I don't want to be the one to change it. -- AdamRaizen

Would be nice to rewrite the paragraph about the phrase's origins with a real story about the phrase's origins.

Is there any perticular reason this is at [Slogan: Let's Roll]? I don't see how [Let's Roll] could be ambiguous or offensive. - Efghij 20:16, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"The image is intended to remain until the first anniversary of the attack." <---- OK, by this point we're approaching the SECOND anniversary of the attack. Has this been discontinued yet?

Contents

[edit] Transformer

An anonymous user add the sentence "The phrase is used Optimus Prime in Transformers," which I moved to here. I remember OP saying "Autobots: transform and roll out!" but I don't remember his saying "Let's roll." Can this be confirmed? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 18:18, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Optimus gives the precise order "Let's roll" in five episodes, including the first one (More Than Meets the Eye parts 1 and 3, The Ultimate Doom part 2, Enter the Nightbird, and The Key to Vector Sigma part 1). Similar phrases appear elsewhere (e.g., "Let's roll for home" in War of the Dinobots). This is as heard on the Rhino DVD sets. I'm new so I'm not sure if such observations count as "original research," but anyone with recordings of the episodes can verify that it's there. Personally I don't think it's enough of a Transformers catch-phrase to merit a TF mention in this article, but I have no strong objection and the anonymous user's recollection is accurate.

Awareness Del 15:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misquote

Maybe Todd said "Let's roll on the floor and beg for mercy" but his words were cut off.

Maybe you're an asshole Eddie (talk) 03:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Resolved

The content referring to the phone call with Lisa Jefferson has been corrected with notable, verifiable sourcing NPOV. I'm amazed this article sat out there with bad information for so long. I'm glad it's been corrected. NYDCSP 15:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continued use as a catchphrase unrelated to Sept 11th

We might want a bit here about the post 9/11 usage of the phrase remaining largely the same outside of the United States. I'm living in the US now, but while in Australia I had no idea that "Let's roll" was in any way related to Sept 11th and continued to hear and use the phrase with absolutely no connotations of "heroism" etc attached to it.

I only found my way here after seeing Curb your enthusiasm (as referenced in this article) and wondering what the hell "Let's Roll" had to do with the terrorist attacks.


Now on an unrelated note - does anyone else think the photo here looks fake? It looks like a photoshop job. The plane looks washed out and dark as though the photo was taken at dusk or dawn (or more likely in shadow) and the "lets roll" logo is bright and vibrant and bright and almost looks like computer graphics.