Context

This line is spoken by Charles Foster Kane in the film Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles (1941).

Rosebud is the most famous sled ever. We'd put a spoiler alert on that, but there's really no way to spoil Citizen Kane.

The movie is about a rich old newspaper publisher named Charles Foster Kane and his mysterious dying word: "Rosebud." What could it be? A flower? An all-American diner? Flower-girl dresses?

Nope. None of the above. As we said, Rosebud is Kane's childhood sled. Which he named. Yes, you read that right: he named his sled.

Where you've heard it

Citizen Kane was the Titanic of the 1940s. Everyone saw the movie (of course the planet was about a third as populated), and everyone was talking about it.

Pretty much every sled you see in a movie or TV spoof is probably going to be named Rosebud. After all, if you're going to name a sled (and that's a big if), what else would you name it? 

Sometimes dying melodramatic characters will even utter it as their very last word.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

We have to ask again: who names a sled?