Posted on 02/01/2019 9:26:57 PM PST by vannrox
Lost Words from our childhood:
Mergatroyd!…
Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Mergatroyd? Heavens to Mergatroyd!
The other day a not so elderly (I say 75) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her quizzically and said “What the heck is a Jalopy?” He never heard of the word jalopy!! She knew she was old…. But not that old.
Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.
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.
Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We’d put on our best bib and tucker, to straighten up and fly right.
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.
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 great 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. Wake up and smell the roses.
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter’s Little Liver Pills are gone too!)
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.
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth…
See ya later, alligator! Oki-doki
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50’S..NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN…WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS: LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY THE “GREATEST GENERATION!”
I wonder now if that was some kind of "egads" modification.
Quite possible - some sayings came because someone misheard someone else using an older phrase...knew a guy who used the term “penny cash” because he thought that’s what someone said years before when saying “petty cash”. Done it myself a number of times - especially with the words to songs on old car AM radios....”Reach out in the darkness” became “Freak lout in the garden”...of course it may have been the pot of the time.....
My grandmother, born in the 1890s, used to comment on things and situations being “thoroughly modern.”
In the 80s when her eyesight was failing, she bought me what she thought was a smiley pin. The face was grimacing and said “oh sh**” spelled out underneath. After dying laughing I explained it to her, she said “no wonder the clerk was so confused.” Hilarious.
My commander calls the funeral home’s casket limo a “hurst.” Cracks me up every time.
Yeah - I always get a kick when folks say such things.
Thanks for your service.
Thanks so much! God bless you.
No problem....Swabie (said in the best possible way...)
Worked with Navy folks during my 24 year AF career and 15 year DOD Civilian career - wish all the services were as in touch with their history/heritage/traditions.
When I retired, I had some Navy and Army folks working for me and they incorporated some of their own ceremonies into my AF one...I still feel honored.
While they worked for me, I managed to get them AF Achievement Medals which really thrilled them - not a lot of folks get sister service medals.
“bangs like the outhouse door in a gale.”
“clean as the preachers sheets.”
“enough mouth for 10 rows of teeth.”
“nuttier than squirrel turds.”
I used to have a word doc to catalog these sayings. Lost it in the cloud.
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