What's up with that?

[Barb]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Cindy C." <cindysphynx at h...> wrote:
> Dai wrote:
> 
> > Can some one explain what "What's up with that?" means?
> 
> Well, I may be a bit too old to convey the meaning of this phrase 
> perfectly, but it basically means, "Can you believe it?"  It is a 
> rhetorical question, designed to show scorn.  It can also be used 
> to express ordinary curiousity (when appended to an observation 
> about Madam Hooch's eye color), but I think it ought to be 
> reserved for situations in which the speaker is appalled, not 
> merely curious.   

Actually, it was another one of those Saturday Night Live tag-lines 
a few years back (others being "Yeah, that's the ticket," "Isn't 
THAT special," etc.; you get the idea).  If memory serves, Kevin 
Nealon (but I could be wrong--might have been someone else) was 
reading commentary on the "newscast" portion of the show and kept 
simply reciting intriguing tidbits about slightly odd things (or 
even not-so-odd things) people do, following up with the lame tag-
line, "What's up with that?"  (Example: "I just saw a woman nursing 
her baby in the subway.  What's up with THAT?")

In my experience, folks just throw these tag-lines around to have 
something to say, because if they didn't say these things it's 
possible that they WOULDN'T have anything to say.  People using this 
particular tag-line now have probably forgotten the origin and the 
fact that the character using the line looked like a great idiot 
(the purpose of the sketch) for repeating this ad nauseum.  

--Barb