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!”
The two agreeable and inubitable gophers were Looney Tune’s Mac and Tosh. Disney had Chip and Dale (Chipmunks).
There was a 1934 Fred and Ginger musical called "The Gay Divorcee". It had nothing to do with homosexuality
From IMDb - "An American woman travels to England to seek a divorce from her absentee husband, where she meets - and falls for - a dashing performer."
The Gay 90s in the 1800s was way different than the Gay 90s of the 1900s.
You want way back? Try 23 skadoo or seeing the elephant!
Then it became a Live Album....
Words never heard from kids today: please and thank you.
Killroy Was Here, is from the cartoonish bald man with big and a HUGE nose and two hands looking over a wall drawing, that WW II G.I.s would leave scrawled, where they were fighting/station.
And a whole LOT of those terms are are quite old Holy Moley is well over 100 years old! ) , though they were still in use for many decades!
wicked good post- we always used to say when we burped “Pardon Me, I meant to puke” - that was pretty popular-
Man alive! It’s a doggone shame how many old idioms have bit the dust, isn’t it?
Our language was much more colorful, back when we still had a more or less homogeneous American culture.
Beats the pants off me, why it all went the way of the Studebaker.
"Hittin' the gong around" meant smoking opium ( usually in an opium den ) and goes back to the late 1800s, though it was still in use in the early 1930s.
Well, I'm a 65 year old 'negro'. I was also raised to be polite to everyone, and to never discriminate on the basis of race.
Perhaps you'll do a fellow old codger a favor and refrain from calling me a negro.
'Black' will do just fine, thanks, although I prefer 'American'.
Ok, ok, you remember this one from SNL
Word Association
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TS1pRmajU
Nope, couldn’t do this one today
I thought it was a swell list.
(Reading my dad’s letters from WWII. He used the word “swell” a lot!)
This thread is really keen.
At least "BLACK" is the English translation of "NEGRO".
OTOH...AMERICAN is THE best term to call you, my FRiend!
It’s also “neato”!
What a trip down memory lane.
You're right about that. I used to work with a South African guy who used to joke that he was one of the few real African-Americans in SoCal .. LOL
Thanks for the kind words, friend.
We were the “Blessed Generation”.
Our fears were born, not at home, not in country.
Our FEARS were born far, far away. Vietnam, Cold War, and Nuclear BOMBS.
We enjoyed the simple things: back yard barbecues, snow cones, and bookmobiles.
Our fears were seen as we watched movies such as “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”, “Tarantula”, “King Kong”, “Creature from the Black Lagoon”; laughable now, but as a young child, they could be seen as super scary stuff.
It’s only a movie.
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