corn-flakes packet

English translation: cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:corn-flakes packet
Selected answer:cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight
Entered by: Valentina Pecchiar

21:17 Jan 24, 2004
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Journalism
English term or phrase: corn-flakes packet
"In the 1960s, President Kennedy's programme to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade took space flight *from the corn-flakes packet to reality*."

It seems to means "from fantasy to reality" - Could anyone please explain?
The author of the text is British, if it matters.
Thanks a million
Valentina Pecchiar
Italy
cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight
Explanation:
Cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight before it became a reality.
Selected response from:

NGK
United States
Local time: 16:27
Grading comment
Thank you very much. I'll watch out for the "free air ticket" box myself :-)
Thanks a mil to James as well, for his vrey informative historical background.
Cheers
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +15cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight
NGK
4It appealed to the children´s fantasy
J. Leo (X)
3project
Iolanta Vlaykova Paneva
2cornflakes = a kind of breakfast cereal
chica nueva


  

Answers


2 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
project


Explanation:
from project to reality

Iolanta Vlaykova Paneva
Canada
Local time: 17:27
Native speaker of: Bulgarian
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4 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +15
cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight


Explanation:
Cereal boxes had illustrations and stories about space flight before it became a reality.

NGK
United States
Local time: 16:27
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in GermanGerman
PRO pts in category: 16
Grading comment
Thank you very much. I'll watch out for the "free air ticket" box myself :-)
Thanks a mil to James as well, for his vrey informative historical background.
Cheers

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Mihaela Sinca
1 min

agree  Jean-Luc Dumont
16 mins

agree  Graciela Carlyle
26 mins

agree  Jairo Contreras-López
59 mins

agree  melayujati: the cereal box is always on the table at breakfast time
1 hr

agree  Alexandra Tussing
1 hr

agree  Brandis (X): can´t do it better
1 hr

agree  aris harianta
1 hr

agree  nyamuk: but as far as the timeline goes the pictures probably came after Sputnik and before the US landed on the moon.
3 hrs

agree  Agnieszka Hayward (X): yep. still waiting for cereal boxes to have a 'free air tickets for all' illustration/ game as an introduction to make it reality :o)
3 hrs

agree  Patricia Baldwin
3 hrs

agree  Rajan Chopra
5 hrs

agree  Annamaria Leone
13 hrs

agree  David Moore (X)
15 hrs

agree  Rajiv Arora
9 days
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9 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5
cornflakes = a kind of breakfast cereal


Explanation:
Guess you probably don't need this, since it is in the dictionary? and you have them in Ireland?

cornflakes (and rice bubbles) are popular breakfast cereals (eg Kelloggs brand) and collectible cards and plastic toys were (are still?) often put in the packets.The same with jelly crystals - they also had cards for children to collect, here in NZ anyway.

cornflakes = small thin yellowish-orange pieces of dry food made from crushed maize, often eaten with milk and sugar in the morning. (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)




chica nueva
Local time: 10:27
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
Grading comment
And there are cornflakes in Italy as well!
I sorta wondered whether along with cards and toys, LEMs were included in the boxes as well ;-)
This is not a real decline, just a note - Thanks indeed for your explanation. Cheers
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The asker has declined this answer
Comment: And there are cornflakes in Italy as well!
I sorta wondered whether along with cards and toys, LEMs were included in the boxes as well ;-)
This is not a real decline, just a note - Thanks indeed for your explanation. Cheers

14 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
It appealed to the children´s fantasy


Explanation:

In the 1960s, the American public education system geared itself to preparing as many children as possible to further their education after high school. The “concentration” on science and math was a result of the desire to win the space race during the Cold War. America needed more engineers, scientists, etc. in order for science fiction to become reality. One could even argue that the social commentary in the original Star Trek television program reflected this ‘propaganda’. That has apparently worked if you consider the comments made by those who had anything to do with the space race, and did actually refer to the series that had inspired the hope that this dream could come true.

The 50 public school system(s) began to shift from the classical elementary school education with ‘one class, one teacher’ system toward a ‘one subject, one teacher’ system similar to university systems. This enabled educational ‘tracking’ to select the cream of the crop and to generate a more concentrated and focused science/math educational career while still offering the all-round education that the American school systems offer(s/ed). We were actually told that these changes were to prepare for the demands of further education.

This approach did, as you say, bring fantasy to reality. The fantasy of children from the 1950s, portrayed on cereal boxes, among others, was engrained in the minds of the children from the 1960s as a possible reality, for obvious political reasons. The success was possible because the “marriage” between the military and scientific communities now had a “noble” goal. It was the military factories that got the contracts to build the Lunar Module. Grumman Aerospace, referred to in the movie Apollo 13, built the LEM.


J. Leo (X)
Local time: 22:27
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
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