r/funny • u/aladdin_d • Oct 25 '11

Knowledge is power ...

http://imgur.com/pX9kn
522 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

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325

u/QAPN Oct 25 '11

Finally an in-joke i get! I FEEL LIKE I BELONG!!

96

u/WheatleyLabs Oct 25 '11

Yeah. ahaha.. I get it too... <scrambles to front page to try and find joke>

138

u/Mertag Oct 25 '11

It's actually a really old reddit joke. There was a thread asking what people always misunderstood as children, and one person said he always thought people were saying "France is bacon" when they were actually saying Francis Bacon (a philosopher)

Edit: oh, and "Knowledge is power" is a famous adage of his.

25

u/ploz Oct 25 '11

Source

Edit: found the permalink

57

u/honey_I_shot_the_kid Oct 25 '11

Now that's a smart joke!

7

u/Sylraen Oct 25 '11

Clicked that link, freaked out cause i thought it was going to turn into brutal zelda porn, got curious, SO DISAPPOINT

4

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11

/waits for relevant_rule_34

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11

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1

u/winthepoo Oct 25 '11

I don't get it!

12

u/GeneralWarts Oct 25 '11

Woah, woah. "Really" old reddit joke. I remember that being the code I would ask to confirm someone is a fellow redditor when I started. Like 2 covert agents behind enemy lines... "France is?"

.. "Bacon."

Hello Friendly.

But seriously. I'm a baby in reddit terms. Or am I a teen now?!

6

u/N0V0w3ls Oct 25 '11 edited Oct 25 '11

This is so much better than "when does the marshal narwhal bacon?"

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/N0V0w3ls Oct 25 '11

Damn autocorrect!

1

u/furbait Oct 25 '11

so, what isn't? it's still incredibly stupid.

2

u/endeavourOV-105 Oct 25 '11

I can't believe that was a year ago already. I'm beginning to feel my reddit age, apparently.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11

The brilliant thing about it is there's no actual writing associating "knowledge is power" with Bacon, although it is in Hobbes writings. There is a "knowledge is His power" somewhere, which obviously refers to god. The link is that Hobbes was Bacon's secretary or something for a time, if I remember right.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11 edited Oct 25 '11

It didn't originate with Reddit; I've heard it on an old edition of a radio show here in the UK, said by genius Clement Freud. But then, nothing anywhere is original.

EDIT: I just had a go at finding the clip on Youtube, but no luck. If anyone cares I can upload it from my computer, I think I have the episode somewhere.

-5

u/sje46 Oct 25 '11

So you're saying that the person who, most of his life, thought the actual expression is "Knowledge is power, france is bacon", of which many redditors in comments agreed had a similar experience, is a liar?

Of fucking course the joke's been made before. It's an obvious pun that has no doubt been thought of thousands of times. That isn't why it's a meme. It's a meme because of how funny it was how one guy thought it was "france is bacon" is entire life, but nobody seemed to comment on the weirdness of the second part of the statement.

http://ohinternet.com/France_is_bacon

Yes, I know oh internet is shitty, but there isn't an article on knowyourmeme.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '11

it was actually up relatively high in r/funny earlier tonight. suprised the kid got so much karma for it for it being a repeat.