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Lost Words From Our Childhood


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Here ya go...

Here’s a good one for all of us ‘who remember’……
 
Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Would you believe the email spell checker did not recognize the word murgatroyd?

Lost Words from our childhood
Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really! The other day a not so elderly (65) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said what the heck is a Jalopy? OMG (new phrase!) he never heard of the word jalopy!!

So they went to the computer and pulled up a picture from the movie "The Grapes of Wrath." Now that was a Jalopy! She knew she was old but not that old...

I hope you are hunky dory after you read this and chuckle...
 
*WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD*
by Richard Lederer
 
About a month ago, I illuminated some 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. 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 Chinese. 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!  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.

 See ya later, alligator!

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"Dead as a doornail." What's a doornail? I've never seen one. I like to say "Deader'n Elvis."

"Selling like hotcakes." What are hotcakes? Are they like pancakes? Have you ever seen a long line outside the door of your local IHOP or Waffle Hut or Denny's? Me neither.

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"Dead as a doornail" means someone, or something is useless. Doornails are the large-headed studs that were used in earlier times for strength and more recently as decoration. The practice was to hammer the nail through and bend the protruding end over to secure it. This process, similar to riveting, was called clenching. This is the origin of the "dead" part, since such a nail would be useless afterwards.

Hotcake is a synonym for pancake. "Selling like hotcakes" is an American idiom coined in the 19th Century when the term "hotcakes was first used. For something to "sell like a hotcake",  it must be bought in mass quantities with little effort on the part of the seller, usually so much so that it is hard to keep up with demand.

H.L. Mencken's "The American Language" is a good read about Americanisms.

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Hotcake is a synonym for pancake. "Selling like hotcakes" is an American idiom coined in the 19th Century...

Oh I knew all that. But imagine the funny looks you'd get if you said something was "selling like pancakes." (I think I'll try it first good chance I get.)

And we'll all be long dead, but imagine the strange looks your kids will get when someday they tell their grandchildren that "There used to be two bathrooms--a 'men's room' and a 'ladies' room.' And 'marriage' used to be just two people--one of each." How strange all that will sound to the Young Things of 2070!

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 "There used to be two bathrooms--a 'men's room' and a 'ladies' room.'

Hey Richard, most of us got used to the idea of unisex terlets by gas stations. You know, the ones that handed you the key attached to a hubcap by a foot long chain. It was all about Liberte, Egalite, Onway oilet-tay. :)

dirty_toilet.thumb.jpg.20d6e0ca278a85fde

 

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A couple  more lost words:   "Please" and "thank you."     :(

 

 

 

Yesterday I heard a short interview with Jack Black, who was in Zürich to promote his new film. The interviewer complimented him on something and Jack answered with, "Danke".

Interviewer: "Ah, you speak German?"

Jack: "Just the one word."

Interviewer: "A very important word though. Not that many German speakers know it."

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How many of you still think of "dialing the phone" when you make a call? Or "hanging up" when you're finished talking?

 

Well, we still call it a "dial tone," don't we. And yes I hang up. Only have a "real" phone that actually plugs into the wall.

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Ok, I didn't realize you were living in 1957! :lol:

No "dial tone" on a cell phone. You punch in the number and hit the "call" button.

Have you seen the little add-ons that run under Windows or Mac and make "typewriter" noises as you hit the keys on your computer keyboard?

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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   Harry, I'm with Snake. I've Never owned a Cell Phone. Although in the late '70's when I worked on Radio Repeaters, for testing I did have a Radio Common Carrier  "Phone" where you would call an Operator and they would dial the number. The system was Simplex so each person had to say Over when done with their part of the conversation - Sorta like CB for the Rich and Famous:P

    Another Phrase I grew up with that is still heard now and then but many have forgotten the root of is "That was an E Ticket Ride". As a Kid that grew up in the San Fernando Valley, when anyones Dad said they were going to Disneyland, it was the Kids job(s) to go to ALL their friends homes and look for Ticket Books with an E Ticket being the Top ticket. Good For the Best Rides!

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Have you seen the little add-ons that run under Windows or Mac and make "typewriter" noises as you hit the keys on your computer keyboard?

No, but I like the ringtones you can download that sound just like an old-fashioned rotary phone sounded when it rang.

 

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No, but I like the ringtones you can download that sound just like an old-fashioned rotary phone sounded when it rang.

 

I recently bought an original Bell System Princess phone, with the light-up rotary dial, at a "vintage" shop for six bucks. Still works. It's a perfect match with my family's original phone number dating back to 1952. I had it transferred to me after my dad passed away two years ago. 

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One anachronistic phrase I still use is 'roll down the window', though I haven't regularly driven a car w/ manual windows in over 20 years.   'power down the window' just doesn't take hold... I also do occasionally say 'tape' instead of 'record', though since I've had DVRs for 15 years or so..

Haven't had a corded landline phone in probably 25 years.. got my first cell 20 years ago, and have had cordless phones since the around '90 or so.... but we still call them 'ring tones'... haven't had a rotary phone since my folks got rid of the black AT&T around 35 years ago..

Edited by Rob Hall
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