|
|
| Author |
Message |
polygon
|
|
Vanishing words and expressions
| 
Sep 29 16:02 UTC 2000 |
There are some terms which were once widely used, but seem to be falling
out of the language. Here's an item to list and discuss them.
A few examples: cat burglar, carfare, icebox, Sunday driver.
|
| 166 responses total. |
albaugh
|
|
response 1 of 166:
|
Sep 29 16:07 UTC 2000 |
How about expressions that are still used, but have a now anachronistic
origin? E.g. being "in the groove". Soon kids/people will never know about
a phonograph, records, needles, etc.
|
brighn
|
|
response 2 of 166:
|
Sep 29 16:26 UTC 2000 |
PErsonally, I like slang words that come back with ever-so-different meanings
or pronunciations. My fave: Dude, which, when said with a hippie drawl, sounds
oddly different than said with a curt surfer tone.
But going back to #0, it's interesting to see "LP" now occasionally used as
a synonym of "album" (that is, referring to a modern artist's LPs, even when
they've never seen vinyl).
Slide rule is probably on its way out too. If any of you younger punks
evenknow what that is.
|
albaugh
|
|
response 3 of 166:
|
Sep 29 16:31 UTC 2000 |
Probably they think that "slide rule" has something to do with baseball...
|
brighn
|
|
response 4 of 166:
|
Sep 29 16:59 UTC 2000 |
Yeah... the slide rule is the thing that says that players get to first base
safely without having to stop on the base, but can be tagged out on the other
bases... yeahyeah.
|
jp2
|
|
response 5 of 166:
|
Sep 29 17:13 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
|
keesan
|
|
response 6 of 166:
|
Sep 29 17:46 UTC 2000 |
The money you pay to ride a trolley car or railway car (or bus).
|
tod
|
|
response 7 of 166:
|
Sep 29 17:50 UTC 2000 |
You old geezers should get on your jallopys and go gallavanting
for flapjacks instead of horsing around with your shenannigans on
the davenport.
|
brighn
|
|
response 8 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:04 UTC 2000 |
Sorry, I can't hear you. The Victrola's up too high.
|
anderyn
|
|
response 9 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:06 UTC 2000 |
I still say "whoa Nellie" and "Carter's little liver pills", which I picked
up from my great-grandparents. Cat burglar is still used in mystery novels,
I am sure.
|
ric
|
|
response 10 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:09 UTC 2000 |
I know what a slide rule is, though I've never seen one.
|
birdy
|
|
response 11 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:16 UTC 2000 |
I still say Sunday driver. =) Got that from Dad.
|
beeswing
|
|
response 12 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:23 UTC 2000 |
My dad has a degree in engineering so he had a slide rule. I remember
him using it occasionally. I loved Apollo 13 (the movie) because they
use slide rules to figure out how to get them back to earth. :)
we can only hope pocket protectors go out of style/vernacular too.
|
drew
|
|
response 13 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:41 UTC 2000 |
Re #5:
Check eBay.
|
jerryr
|
|
response 14 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:54 UTC 2000 |
i used to use a sliderule when i worked for robert hall clothing stores in
the 1960's.
you can buy one @: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/slide.html
|
polygon
|
|
response 15 of 166:
|
Sep 29 18:55 UTC 2000 |
There is a fellow in Ann Arbor (spouse of a local politician) who has
a room in his house fitted up as a museum of obsolete calculating
devices -- complete with glass cases, etc. He has all kinds of antique
slide rules, early calculators, etc. If you'd like to see it, let me
know and I'll put you in touch with him.
|
brighn
|
|
response 16 of 166:
|
Sep 29 19:00 UTC 2000 |
I have a coworker who (in all seriousness) says Yea, verily all the time.
|
polygon
|
|
response 17 of 166:
|
Sep 29 19:28 UTC 2000 |
When I was a kid, we all said "icebox" routinely to mean "refrigerator".
Refrigerator had all those syllables and sounded mincingly precise.
When you left the house to take a bus somewhere, my mother (or whoever)
would say, "do you have carfare?" When my parents talked about the
expenses of going somewhere in town (we didn't have our own vehicle), they
would mention "carfare" as one of the expenses, unless a taxicab was being
used. It was only later that I realized the "car" meant streetcar.
"Sunday driver" (which survives in the lyrics to a Beatles song) is from
an era when a lot of people who owned cars didn't use them much, e.g.,
they might drive to church and not much else. Hence, it was assumed that
traffic on Sunday included a lot of not-very-experienced drivers.
|
brighn
|
|
response 18 of 166:
|
Sep 29 19:40 UTC 2000 |
I still use icebox, actually. Or fridge.
How about words for things or concepts that haven't changed appreciably?
Obviously words for specific objects that have gone by the wayside (or
cultural events) will likewise go by the wayside over time.
Slang comes to mind (23 skiddoo... Renfield, you idiot, this book is as out
of date as... I am!), but are there more mainstream examples?
|
md
|
|
response 19 of 166:
|
Sep 29 19:58 UTC 2000 |
I always thought "Sunday driver" was someone who just went for a drive
on Sunday with no special destination -- i.e., a slow, aimless,
annoying driver with zero sense of urgency. A lawyer friend, born in
London, once complained, "Oi ites paypuls wot goes fuh Sunday droives."
|
brighn
|
|
response 20 of 166:
|
Sep 29 20:41 UTC 2000 |
#19's what I thought, too.
|
twinkie
|
|
response 21 of 166:
|
Sep 29 21:32 UTC 2000 |
Ditto.
|
tpryan
|
|
response 22 of 166:
|
Sep 29 21:41 UTC 2000 |
Xerox.
|
brighn
|
|
response 23 of 166:
|
Sep 29 22:19 UTC 2000 |
Mimeograph.
Oh wait, you mean this ISN'T the Word Association item?
|
scott
|
|
response 24 of 166:
|
Sep 29 23:09 UTC 2000 |
Hey, I remember mimeograph machines! We even had one in the basement for a
while, when Dad needed to print off a bunch of copies of some kind of writing
project. Purple ink rules!
I actually still use a slide rule... I keep it in the car to figure gas
mileage.
Being a musician gets me close to some anachronisms... I use vacuum tubes on
a regular basis, for instance.
|