The characters of Abby and Martha are actually a tribute to Joseph Kesselring's "Arsenic and Old Lace." Abby and Martha are the names of the homicidal spinster aunts.
Actress Danica McKellar appeared on this episode when Sheldon and Raj meet her character Abby while attending a mixer at the university. In the episode The Bat Jar Conjecture (2008), Raj says, "How about the girl from The Wonder Years (1988)?" He is referring to Danica McKellar, who has a degree in mathematics.
This the third time that Raj pretends to be of humble origins, only to have one of his friends point out that his father is actually a gynecologist (which also occurred in The Griffin Equivalency (2008) and The Work Song Nanocluster (2009)).
The Hindi phrase that Raj says that he said means, "Whatever floats your boat.", the literal translation is: "Whatever keeps you happy."
Jim Parsons and Danica McKellar (Abby) share the distinction of playing a character whose last name is Cooper, while in real life, they are polar opposites regarding their well-known association with numbers: Sheldon Cooper, unlike Jim, is a physicist. Danica, who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years (1988), is a mathematician.