\nOLD WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD
\n\t by Richard Lederer (A remarkable linguist)<\/p>\n
\tAbout a month ago, I illuminated old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included don\u2019t 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:<\/p>\n
\tBack in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We\u2019d put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We\u2019d 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\u2019 lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin\u2019 Jehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn\u2019t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!<\/p>\n
\tBack in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when\u2019s 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\u2019t anymore.<\/p>\n
\tLike Washington Irving\u2019s Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s 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, \u201cI\u2019ll be a monkey\u2019s uncle!\u201d or \u201cThis is a fine kettle of fish!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\tPoof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we\u2019ve left behind. We blink, and they\u2019re 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\u2019s monkey.<\/p>\n
\tWhere 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\u2019s your nickel. Don\u2019t 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\u2019ll see you in the funny papers. Don\u2019t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!
\n\tOh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.<\/p>\n
\tThis can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\tWe 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\u2019s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> ACPA on February 14, 2015, 3:50 am<\/p>\n \tThanks, I knew them all.<\/p>\n \tNoah<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Posted by:<\/strong> OneMoonCircles on February 15, 2015, 6:16 am<\/p>\n \tI think many words in the past were more "universal" than today. My grandkids have a few that adults hardly ever hear.<\/p>\n \tFun<\/p>\n \tOMC<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OLD WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD 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\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coffee-chat-lounge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tOrder in the courtroom here come da judge. 13. No fudging. Stickers. Shooters and dates. Onions and cat eyes. Put a lid on it. Can it. Tickled pink.
\n\t"What we have here is failure to communicate." Screw loose.<\/p>\n