Olden days expressions
Apr 10, 2015 21:39:21 #
Many of you...probably most of you...have never heard these expressions used by some of us old geezers as we grew up during the 30s and the 40s.
OLD WORDS AND PHRASES
by Richard Lederer (A remarkable linguist)
About a month ago, I illuminated old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included don't touch that dial , carbon copy, you sound like a broken record and hung out to dry . A bevy of readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:
Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We'd cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers' lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were In like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!
Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, I'll be a monkey's uncle! or This is a fine kettle of fish! We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.
Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder's monkey.
Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston. The very idea! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!
Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart's deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.
We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.
OLD WORDS AND PHRASES
by Richard Lederer (A remarkable linguist)
About a month ago, I illuminated old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included don't touch that dial , carbon copy, you sound like a broken record and hung out to dry . A bevy of readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:
Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We'd cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers' lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were In like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!
Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, I'll be a monkey's uncle! or This is a fine kettle of fish! We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.
Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder's monkey.
Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston. The very idea! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!
Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart's deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.
We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.
Apr 10, 2015 21:58:00 #
Apr 11, 2015 02:48:34 #
Beowulf
Loc: Aquidneck Island, RI
And true to the character of the English language, in about 25 years those computer terms, the tech expressions, and the messaging shorthand (lol, lmfao, etc.) that are so much a part of every day life today will be consigned to history as archaic artifacts.
Apr 11, 2015 05:02:53 #
The evolution of language, a sad fact.
Great Post :thumbup: :thumbup:
Swede :wink: :wink:
Great Post :thumbup: :thumbup:
Swede :wink: :wink:
Apr 11, 2015 07:53:50 #
Jackel wrote:
Many of you...probably most of you...have never heard these expressions used by some of us old geezers as we grew up during the 30s and the 40s.
What a SWELL post! (And yes, I still use swell and I know and sometimes use many of the others and I'm "only" 73!) :mrgreen: :thumbup: :lol:
Apr 11, 2015 08:08:58 #
Good one. And if you use words that are even slightly out of date - you date yourself.
Apr 11, 2015 08:19:48 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Good one. And if you use words that are even slightly out of date - you date yourself.
I resemble that remark! :lol:
Apr 11, 2015 08:33:08 #
Jackel wrote:
Many of you...probably most of you...have never he... (show quote)
Those are all great and made me feel old and nostalgic at the same time, so I hafta add one more:
"Will it play in Peoria?"
Apr 11, 2015 10:29:59 #
I was born in '51 so I was exposed to most of those words and phrases. Thanks for reviving them (to our memories, at least).
Apr 11, 2015 10:50:24 #
OldEarl
Loc: Northeast Kansas
Expressions come and go. A couple years back we were reviewing the "street" language used by inmate gang members--the hio, up to date crowd. They were using the terms "gat" and "roscoe" to describe their weaponry.
And yet we can get students excited by Shakespeare whose language we describe as Early Modern English. And the Renaissance Festival crowd uses the old phrases with cockney accents that date to the latter half of the 19th Century. As the 19th Century mathematician Charles Ludwidge Dodgson once wrote, "curiouser and curiouser."
And yet we can get students excited by Shakespeare whose language we describe as Early Modern English. And the Renaissance Festival crowd uses the old phrases with cockney accents that date to the latter half of the 19th Century. As the 19th Century mathematician Charles Ludwidge Dodgson once wrote, "curiouser and curiouser."
Apr 11, 2015 11:17:26 #
Apr 11, 2015 11:22:05 #
paulie1138
Loc: Arizona
To be happy and gay....was a mood, and had nothing to do with someone's sexual orientation!
Apr 11, 2015 11:30:47 #
Jackel wrote:
Many of you...probably most of you...have never he... (show quote)
Thought I would Bust a gut.I got lost in the twilight zone, while I was watching The Lone Ranger
Apr 11, 2015 14:31:49 #
How about the parting expression: "God willing an' the crick don't rise"? Or, the exclamation, "Gee whillikers"?
Remember the Little Orphan Annie comic strip and the phrase "Leapin' Lizards, Sandy?"
A small-city kid, I was born in, and grew up in, a farming community. I still remember my beloved Mother, one of twelve kids born in a farm family, using the expression, when someone was late to the dinner table: "C'mon to the table. We're waitin' for you like one hog waits for another." (grin).
She was a salt-of-the-earth gal, and not a day goes by...even after 30-plus years I don't think of her.
Now, I'll leave, continue looking at some more messages...that is: God willing, an' the crick don't rise.
Remember the Little Orphan Annie comic strip and the phrase "Leapin' Lizards, Sandy?"
A small-city kid, I was born in, and grew up in, a farming community. I still remember my beloved Mother, one of twelve kids born in a farm family, using the expression, when someone was late to the dinner table: "C'mon to the table. We're waitin' for you like one hog waits for another." (grin).
She was a salt-of-the-earth gal, and not a day goes by...even after 30-plus years I don't think of her.
Now, I'll leave, continue looking at some more messages...that is: God willing, an' the crick don't rise.
Apr 11, 2015 15:00:58 #
I
These bring back a lot of memories.
By the way, how many remember OLDEN Camera Co.?
Jackel wrote:
Many of you...probably most of you...have never he... (show quote)
These bring back a lot of memories.
By the way, how many remember OLDEN Camera Co.?
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