Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Just Jim]

Help me out here if you would folks. Back when I was a kid, I occasionally heard a word (obviously pejorative) used to describe the kind of folks who plant trees on a property line, or build a fence and expect the neighbor to take care of it. Anyone have any ideas? The folks I heard using it reached adulthood roughly around the end of WWII.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Zombie_61]

Help me out here if you would folks. Back when I was a kid, I occasionally heard a word (obviously pejorative) used to describe the kind of folks who plant trees on a property line, or build a fence and expect the neighbor to take care of it. Anyone have any ideas? The folks I heard using it reached adulthood roughly around the end of WWII.

Thanks,
Jim

I know which word my family would have used, but I can't repeat it here.

 

[Trenchfriend]

"Dishy bird"

 

[tonyb]

“Three hots and a cot.”

The phrase predates me, but I knew what it meant when I heard it, seeing how the folks a generation and two ahead of me might have well been enticed in their early years by a job that promised three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep.

 

[Bushman]

“Three hots and a cot.”

The phrase predates me, but I knew what it meant when I heard it, seeing how the folks a generation and two ahead of me might have well been enticed in their early years by a job that promised three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep.

I still see this phrase used today, though normally only in associate with the service or prison, two of the few places left where you're almost guaranteed three meals a day and a bed at night.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That was a common phrase among unemployed men during the Depression -- who figured a night in jail for some petty, pointless crime was at least a way to get a place to sleep and eat. Of course, many of those men wound up on the wrong end of a rubber hose or a sandbag or on a chain gang. Or worse.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Depression-era phrases were a staple of my father (born 1915). When I'd ask for something he thought was foolish or too expensive he'd say, "I'd love to, son, but I'm going on relief next week."

 

[tonyb]

I still see this phrase used today, though normally only in associate with the service or prison, two of the few places left where you're almost guaranteed three meals a day and a bed at night.

Cursory research bears that out. I can see how it might have been used euphemistically — “Uncle Jimmy’s gettin’ his three hots and a cot, on account of that car he borrowed.”

 

[tonyb]

Which reminds me ...

“Three squares” was a phrase I heard with some frequency up until maybe 25 years ago and hardly ever since, so it seems it died out with that generation born on the first couple decades of the 20th century.

“If push comes to shove, I can scratch out three squares a day driving a hack.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

Do most people even eat three squares anymore? A breakfast burrito from Dunkie's eaten behind the wheel of a car or a grab-n-go lunch inhaled at your desk doesn't seem very square to me.

 

[tonyb]

Do most people even eat three squares anymore? A breakfast burrito from Dunkie's eaten behind the wheel of a car or a grab-n-go lunch inhaled at your desk doesn't seem very square to me.

I don’t know if “square” refers to one item from each of the four food groups (that model has fallen out of favor) or if it means square as in “proper.”

Whatever the etymology, though, your observation is on the money. Our daily comings and goings don’t lend themselves to three proper sit-down meals. But we snack much more than our grandparents and great-grandparents did, I strongly suspect. And we have the waistlines to show for it.

 

[The1940sHousewife]

I don't know why people don't say "how do you do?" anymore. It just seems so proper and polite.
Also, people don't make conversation now a days. It's all about "me". I don't hear the term "swell".

 

[Upgrade]

There’s probably a strong association with “How do you do?” and “how now brown cow” when teaching the round vowel sound in comical elocution skits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or as "the Mad Russian" used to say on radio, "Hahdooooyadooooooo!"

 

[BobHufford]

The term bedclothes (to describe the sheets, blankets, etc.) seems to be going away. My grown kids are amused by my usage of it anyway.

 

[tonyb]

The term bedclothes (to describe the sheets, blankets, etc.) seems to be going away. My grown kids are amused by my usage of it anyway.

That term was unfamiliar to me until I was grown, and while it’s easy enough for most folks unfamiliar with it to deduce its meaning from context, I use “bedding” to mean the same thing.

Nothing wrong with “bedclothes,” but coming out of my mouth it would sound affected.

 

[BobHufford]

That term was unfamiliar to me until I was grown, and while it’s easy enough for most folks unfamiliar with it to deduce its meaning from context, I use “bedding” to mean the same thing.

Nothing wring with “bedclothes,” but coming out of my mouth it would sound affected.

Well ... when trying to think of a synonym I couldn't even come up with "bedding". Guess I'm just living in the past.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Oh I'm headin' for my beddin' for to lay down for the night! Oh I'm headin' for my beddin', to lay down sleep me tight!" -- Bugs Bunny

 

[Haversack]

I'll raise you, "Peepin' through the knothole in grandpa's wooden leg..." - B. Bunny

 

[LizzieMaine]

"20th Century Fox" is no more, with Disney, which bought out the studio last year, having officially changed the name to "20th Century Studios." This is almost, but not quite, a return to the original "20th Century Pictures" name that Darryl F. Zanuck used for his studio before it merged with the Fox Film Corporation in 1934.

It was this original "20th Century Pictures" company that first used the animated art-deco buildings-and-searchlights logo, with the addition of FOX to the trademark coming later.

The logo will be retained with the elimination of the FOX name. The change was stipulated in the contracts under which Disney bought out the film and television studio operations, in order to prevent any confusion with Fox News or the Fox Television Network, which will remain under control of the Murdoch family. That company has had nothing to do with its founder, William Fox, since that mogul was expelled from the company in 1930, driven to bankruptcy, and ultimately sentenced to prison for trying to bribe a bankruptcy judge. The present Murdoch companies will retain the Fox name.