pop culture saves the day

Interesting happening in class today. We're reading Dostoyevsky's "The Brother's Karamozov" and, to make a long story short, there's a chap that mentions someone dying of consumption. So a girl asks "what's that?" The teacher said he didn't really know, so a couple of us pipe up with the fact that it's what they used to call tuberculosis. Blank expressions on 3/4 of the faces in class. Finally, I go "It's what Satine had in Moulin Rouge."

A pause. "oh..." Sudden recognition. "....OH!"

And pop culture once again makes the world safe for learning.