old terms or expressions that are still among us

[Jayessgee]

There is a thread dedicated to past expressions of speech no longer generally used. I just recently came aware of one I had thought a modern usage to be older than I had thought. That made me think this might make a nice companion thread to that other.

Anyway, that expression is, "my man."

What brought it to my attention was that I was watching an old 1930's Charlie Chan flick on You tube. (Gads I love that channel! I just connect it from my computer through to my TV. Practically no commercials and no fees either!)
But, when asked to follow someone #One Son jauntily replies "Let's go my man!" Of course that leads him right into being kidnapped. This was Charlie Chan at the Berlin Olympics.

Another expression much older though somewhat altered is "Go for it!" This I find to be especially popular here in Texas. I am also a "Civil War buff" (Or, War Between the States depending on your cardinal orientation, i/e North or South.) I was reading a memoir of a Texas Brigade (CSA a Unit with Lee's Army) and he recalled an incident when they were shouting to a fleeing Yank, "Go it!" That surprised me that we use it still.

Of course others have more recent origins. Juke box comes from the 1920s or 30s "juke joint." ("Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly.")

Along those same lines is the word "jive" according to Merriam-Webster, first seen in 1928.

Ok, lets see if this merits any additional input. What other phrases are still dropped, even if somewhat altered, that may well echo down the dusty corridors of time.
I realize these may well predate the "Golden era" but it seems to be the best place for it.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Cool" is a word that never seems to lose its, ehem, cool. I know it is older, but I've heard it used in 1930s movies or books (don't have a clear memory) where it meant (again from memory) "fashionable." Not quite today's more nuanced meaning, but you can see how it evolved from fashionable. The word never seems to go out of style. It clearly had acquired its more subtle meaning by the time it was used in the '50s to describe Dean, Brando, etc. So it's had a pretty good run that doesn't show any signs of ending.

 

[Bushman]

"Dude". Although the connotation has changed, the exchange of calling a guy "dude" has remained through the years.

 

[Haversack]

You can put "My man" back at least as far as 1891. In Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers, one of the title characters says the following to the Grand Inquisitor of Spain: "Now, my man," [Slapping him on the back], "we don't want
anything in your line to-day, and if your curiosity's satisfied, you can go."

Of course, this was taken as a liberty and a presumption of intimacy by the GI. It likely goes back further in referring to one's personal bodyservant or valet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Robinson Crusoe referred to "his man" Friday, which is likely the origin of plutocrats referring to their valets as "my man."

If you want to go way back, in the New Testament Pontius Pilate refers to Jesus as "the man." (John 19:5)

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^

And further back to Genesis...
Oh Adam...you are “my man"!”

 

[Haversack]

English has a lot of expressions that are derived from previously ubiquitous technologies, (e.g. sailing, horses, weapons). Here are a few:

Shipshape and Bristol fashion.
The devil to pay.
Run well in harness together.
Ridden hard and put away wet.
Lock, stock, and barrel.
Flash in the pan.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

If you want to go way back, in the New Testament Pontius Pilate refers to Jesus as "the man." (John 19:5)

"Ecce homo", no sense of familiarity in that, as compared to "my man" or "my boy".

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was being facetious. Although some have cited Pilate's comment as being the origin of calling someone "The Man," as in "You The Man!"

 

[ChiTownScion]

English has a lot of expressions that are derived from previously ubiquitous technologies, (e.g. sailing, horses, weapons). Here are a few:

Shipshape and Bristol fashion.
The devil to pay.
Run well in harness together.
Ridden hard and put away wet.
Lock, stock, and barrel.
Flash in the pan.

The nautical origins of many expressions that we employ are too numerous to list, but here's a good link:

http://see-the-sea.org/nautical/naut-body.htm

 

[green papaya]

he was "cool as a cucumber" when he went for his old Colt 45 and gunned down three outlaws that tried to rob him.

$500 dollars for that old piece of junk? "Thats Highway Robbery"

Im cutting back on my collecting or "Im thinning the herd"

"You cant squeeze blood from a Turnip"

those draft dodging hippie / protesters are a bunch of "Yellow Bellied Cowards" they wont fight for their country

"Pansy" or a weak, effeminate, and often cowardly man

"Pinko" or commie

"the old chinaman" or the old chinese man

"taking a man's guns away is like "cutting the balls off a bull"

 

[green papaya]

I noticed people from places like Alabama say stuff like "Eating high on the Hog" meaning good eating or good food.

is often said to be the fact that the best cuts of meat on a pig come from the back and upper leg and that the wealthy ate cuts from "high on the hog" like the shoulders and ham. On the other hand, the paupers ate those less desirable parts of the hog that are located on the bottom: belly pork, pig tails, pig feet, chitterling, and cracklings.

 

[2jakes]

Some expressions that I use.

Peachy keen.
I say this at work mockingly. I have a friend who is now saying it too.
But he told me that he is driving his wife nuts at home.


“Got dandruff & some of it itches"
When I get upset for no good reason.

"Chicken fried steak & I don’t care”.
On the occasions when I place an order at restaurants.
I say it to the tune of “Jimmy crack corn”.
And I have no idea why.


There are other expressions that I cannot repeat here which are
used by the girl reporters. It helps release tension & nobody
else hears it but me. Sometimes I tell them if they keep it up, it’s
going to get me very hot.
That makes them laugh & they will tell me where to go or
kiss some body part.
But that usually back fires on them when I reply with,,,
“peachy keen”...

 

[Zombie_61]

There are other expressions that I cannot repeat here which are
used by the girl reporters. It helps release tension & nobody
else hears it but me. Sometimes I tell them if they keep it up, it’s
going to get me very hot.
That makes them laugh & they will tell me where to go or
kiss some body part.
But that usually back fires on them when I reply with,,,
“peachy keen”...

Whenever I get the "Kiss my [insert body part here]" comment from one of our female friends, my response is "Bare it." It calls their bluff, and usually puts a smile on their face at the same time. Win win. Of course, I could get into real trouble if they ever called my bluff, but so far that hasn't happened.

I'm doing what little I can to bring "Toots" back as a term of endearment. I reserve it exclusively for my wife, and a good male friend chuckles whenever he hears me use it, but so far it hasn't caught on.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There is a lovely Yiddish phrase I picked up when I worked in a deli which serves the purpose of "Kiss my..." in a more imaginative way than the usual. If I had a coat of arms, I would use it as the motto. "Kish mir en t-----."

 

[2jakes]

There is a lovely Yiddish phrase I picked up when I worked in a deli which serves the purpose of "Kiss my..." in a more imaginative way than the usual. If I had a coat of arms,
I would use it as the motto. "Kish mir en t-----."

Peachy keen !

 

[Fading Fast]

There is a lovely Yiddish phrase I picked up when I worked in a deli which serves the purpose of "Kiss my..." in a more imaginative way than the usual. If I had a coat of arms, I would use it as the motto. "Kish mir en t-----."

Hmm, Lizzie picks up a Yiddish expression "when I worked in a deli." Okay, in NYC, most delis are a melding of time-warp Jewish food with an American-food-view overlay and a mishmash of languages - today - of English, Yiddish (I think) and Spanish (as there are plenty of Latin American immigrants working in them today). But in Maine? Now I remember you mentioned working / living in LA, but where did this Jewish deli experience fit in?

As an aside, I saw a special on a Jewish Deli in NYC (the show is called "Old NY" or something like that) where the Latin American counter workers now speak Yiddish as they picked it up from the other workers and older customers. It's a great moment of organic cultural melding - young hispanic looking men speaking Yiddish with older Jewish customers - fantastic. It's not forced, not top down, not for some "good" cause or reason, but it happened because it inherently made sense.

 

[2jakes]

Hmm, Lizzie picks up a Yiddish expression "when I worked in a deli." Okay, in NYC, most delis are a melding of time-warp Jewish food with an American-food-view overlay and a mishmash of languages - today - of English, Yiddish (I think) and Spanish (as there are plenty of Latin American immigrants working in them today). But in Maine? Now I remember you mentioned working / living in LA, but where did this Jewish deli experience fit in?

As an aside, I saw a special on a Jewish Deli in NYC (the show is called "Old NY" or something like that) where the Latin American counter workers now speak Yiddish as they picked it up from the other workers and older customers. It's a great moment of organic cultural melding - young hispanic looking men speaking Yiddish with older Jewish customers - fantastic. It's not forced, not top down, not for some "good" cause or reason, but it happened because it inherently made sense.

I first experienced Yiddish expressions, when I worked/lived in LA.
There is a plethora of Jewish influence available even @ Rodeo Drive.

 

[Fading Fast]

I first experienced Yiddish expressions, when I worked/lived in LA.
There is a plethora of Jewish influence available even @ Rodeo Drive.

I had no idea - bet that is where Lizzie picked it up. I picked up some Yiddish words on a NY trading desk twenty plus years ago sitting next to an older Jewish gentleman who "taught" them to me as he sprinkled them into his everyday speech.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hmm, Lizzie picks up a Yiddish expression "when I worked in a deli." Okay, in NYC, most delis are a melding of time-warp Jewish food with an American-food-view overlay and a mishmash of languages - today - of English, Yiddish (I think) and Spanish (as there are plenty of Latin American immigrants working in them today). But in Maine? Now I remember you mentioned working / living in LA, but where did this Jewish deli experience fit in?

As an aside, I saw a special on a Jewish Deli in NYC (the show is called "Old NY" or something like that) where the Latin American counter workers now speak Yiddish as they picked it up from the other workers and older customers. It's a great moment of organic cultural melding - young hispanic looking men speaking Yiddish with older Jewish customers - fantastic. It's not forced, not top down, not for some "good" cause or reason, but it happened because it inherently made sense.

Santa Barbara, California in the early '80s. An island of kashrut in a sea of salsa, but very very good. Although I realized it was not a job for me the day I opened a 55 gallon drum packed full of cow tongues.

Yiddish is a wonderful language. There's a hilarious scene in one of my favorite James Cagney pictures, "Taxi!," where Cagney, as a union-activist cab driver of highly Irish extraction, engages in a conversation with an agitated passenger in fluent Yiddish.