Party lines
Telephones with dials
Posted on 05/30/2017 5:00:59 AM PDT by sodpoodle
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, well 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, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone. Where have all those phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it.
Hey! It’s your nickel.
Don’t forget to pull the chain.
Knee-high to a grasshopper.
Well, fiddlesticks!
Going like sixty.
I’ll see you in the funny papers.
Don’t take any wooden nickels.
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff!
We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeable 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.
See ya later, alligator!
“Well! Doesn’t that just rot your socks?!”
Confused
I became confused when I heard the word “Service” used with these agencies:
Internal Revenue ‘Service’
U.S. Postal ‘Service’
Telephone ‘Service’
Cable / TV ‘Service’
Civil ‘Service’
City, County & State Public ‘Service’
Customer ‘Service’
This is not what I thought ‘Service’ meant.
But today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to ‘Service’ a few cows.
BAM!!! It all came into focus.
Now I understand what all those agencies are doing.
I hope that you are now just as enlightened as I am.
Frigidaire...
Party Line
We called it the icebox.
Outhouse
It's nothing to write home about.
And what ever happened to doohickey bobbers? You never hear that one anymore.
Wonder what the FReeper demographics are? Would have to believe there is a high percentage of geezers - encouraging our kids and grandchildren to sign up.
Ice Box. I still can’t stop using it, because my Grandmother used it, and that’s all we called it when I was growing up. People think I’m talking about a freezer or cooler ;-)
I still hear them say ‘don’t touch that dial’ on radio, even Internet Radio.
My Grandma used to call Grandpas’s car “the machine.”
Those were still in Effect until the early 90’s in some parts of the country
Party lines
Telephones with dials
Soda jerk. Penny candy.
Oh, that went out with high button shoes!
Vermont Country Store sells rotary-style touch tone phones. They do make them like that anymore. Kinda. :-)
Much cheaper at an estate sale. :)
I’ll be in Rockingham on Fri to get some VCS fudge!
Phrases my second generation Irish American grandfather used until his death:
- Battries
- Colored folk
- Eyetalians
- Cripple spot (handicapped parking spot)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.