Words gone as fast as the buggy
whip! Sad really! The other day a not so elderly lady (65) said
something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically
and said what the heck is a Jalopy? OMG (new phrase) he never heard of
the word jalopy!! So they went to the computer and pulled up a picture
from the movie "The Grapes of Wrath." Now that was a Jalopy! She
knew she was old but not that old.
~
I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read
this and chuckle ...
~
WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY
WE WORD by Richard Lederer.
~
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. A bevy of
readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and
I am happy to oblige.
~
Back in the olden days we had a lot of
moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly
right. Hubba-hubba! We'd 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
lane. 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.
~
Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's 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, “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, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're 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’s monkey.
Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's 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, “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, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're 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’s monkey.
~
Where 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's your nickel. Don't 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'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go! Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart's 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.
Where 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's your nickel. Don't 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'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go! Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart's 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.
~
We 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's one of the greatest
advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.
~
Where have those words gone?
~
Where have those words gone?
~
See ya later, alligator!
