Quesadilla? What's Happening?

So, my This American Life podcast were these very interesting stories about obscure myths that we carry into adulthood - things too obscure to ask about or question; things that come up so rarely that we just keep believing the odd construct we came up with to explain them; and then what happens when we finally have the opportunity to say them out loud. For example, the producer of the piece had heard the phrase 'Nielsen Family' or 'Nielsen Rating' when he was 10 or 11 and he made up this logic in his mind that people named Nielsen must be a representative cross-section of average Americans, thus families named Nielsen got to rate television programs. It was only in his 30s that this phrase came up in conversation with another adult and the producer said something to his friend like, "Isn't it odd that they're all named Nielsen?" In each of the stories, this accidental confession is followed by a long awkward pause while the person hearing this crazy logic (which has been living in the speaker's head since childhood) absorbs and deconstructs how in the world the speaker could have arrived at such a conclusion.

One guy had always thought that Quesadilla was Spanish for "What's happening?"

I have one of these and it involves the song Oh Christmas Tree.

The opening of the story contained a phrase that I'll use again and again. Two people traveling in Europe were touristing and commenting on the architecture wherever they were. One of them said that there seemed to be a 'Moorish' influence and then they wandered further and further into Moorish influences and what was Moorish about the structure, etc., and suddenly they realized they had no idea what they were even talking about. One of them said that they sounded like some kind of magazine. A magazine called Modern Jackass.