Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Shangas]

I still use "Kid in a Candy store". Although around our town I only know of maybe 2-3 candy stores which would fit the bill.

 

[Stearmen]

I'm not even sure about seven or eight because kids are now getting into video games at a much younger age. Before it was mainly older kids and teens.

They get their first cell phone in preschool, or before!

 

[Mr Oldschool]

Yeah, the "candy stores" around here are all high-end boutiques that sell designer fudge for $20 a lb and up. Ocasionally you'll find old fashioned candy at cash registers for other types of stores, but there aren't any true old-fashioned candy stores here.

My 10 year old and my 6 year old both ask for phones all the time, but I steadfastly refuse. "Who would you call that you can't use the house phone to call?" is my usual response. Fortunately, they don't get too hooked on the video games, so the tech intrusion isn't too bad, yet...

 

[skydog757]

"I'd hang my hat on that."

 

[mactire]

To a couple of guys looking for trouble "Arra lads, I couldn't knock ye into one decent fella"

 

[Stearmen]

I'm going to knock your block off!

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm currently reading "The Saint in New York," published in 1934, and a firearm (handgun) was referred to as a "Betsy." A quick Internet search via Etymology Dictionary shows that this was a slang term for a gun and the origin goes back to 1785: British Army slang - "Brown Bess" - for the old flintlock musket.

This is just another reason why I love reading old books - it puts you in the time in a way that even the best historical fiction writer can't fully capture as there will always be some modern bent / influence to historical fiction. The Saint series isn't challenging, but every few years I enjoy reading one as time travel escapism.

 

[skydog757]

My father liked to get out of the house and drive around town, checking out how the fishing or hunting in the area was going. While out, he would often pick up a foot-long coney dog at Dairy Queen for my mother (Freda), who really enjoyed them as an occassioinal treat (always with extra onions). At one particular family gathering someone remarked how much my mother must like coney dogs, to which my father (unthinkingly) replied "Oh yeah, Fritzy goes after those things like a hound." Much hilarity followed, but my father never used that phrase in the presence of my mother again.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

When I was a boy, and making undue fuss over a perceived injustice, my mother or father would remonstrate with, "Don't make a Federal case out of it!"

 

[HudsonHawk]

My father liked to get out of the house and drive around town, checking out how the fishing or hunting in the area was going. While out, he would often pick up a foot-long coney dog at Dairy Queen for my mother (Freda), who really enjoyed them as an occassioinal treat (always with extra onions). At one particular family gathering someone remarked how much my mother must like coney dogs, to which my father (unthinkingly) replied "Oh yeah, Fritzy goes after those things like a hound." Much hilarity followed, but my father never used that phrase in the presence of my mother again.

My grandmother used to describe someone's enthusiam as "like a goat eating garbage". That one still cracks me up.

 

[Shangas]

When I was a boy, and making undue fuss over a perceived injustice, my mother or father would remonstrate with, "Don't make a Federal case out of it!"

Not often, but I do still hear that every now and then.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I'm currently reading "The Saint in New York," published in 1934, and a firearm (handgun) was referred to as a "Betsy." A quick Internet search via Etymology Dictionary shows that this was a slang term for a gun and the origin goes back to 1785: British Army slang - "Brown Bess" - for the old flintlock musket.

This is just another reason why I love reading old books - it puts you in the time in a way that even the best historical fiction writer can't fully capture as there will always be some modern bent / influence to historical fiction. The Saint series isn't challenging, but every few years I enjoy reading one as time travel escapism.

Or Daniel Boone's "Old Betsy"

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I had moved to Huntsville Alabama to work with Boeing on a NASA program, I was in a hurry for something and a very attractive girl told me "don't get your panties in a wad." I still like that one.

Later

 

[Stearmen]

Strutting like a rooster.

 

[Shangas]

Strutting like a rooster.

Struttin' like this rooster?

[video=youtube;L8TQZBHszI4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8TQZBHszI4[/video]

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Jake," meaning "OK, swell, great, copacetic." It could be used sincerely, as in "Everything's jake with me!" or it could be used caustically, as in "Oh, yeahhhh, well ain't this just jake!"

Just one of many fine slang words pre-empted by the hideous newspeak that is "awwwwwwesome."

 

[HudsonHawk]

"Jake," meaning "OK, swell, great, copacetic." It could be used sincerely, as in "Everything's jake with me!" or it could be used caustically, as in "Oh, yeahhhh, well ain't this just jake!"

Just one of many fine slang words pre-empted by the hideous newspeak that is "awwwwwwesome."

Or the millennial equivalent: "allsome".

I always heard "jake" as a form of "jake legged" as in "paralyzed in a drunken stupor". Look at those jakes holding up the lamp post...

 

[dh66]

I always heard "jake" as a form of "jake legged" as in "paralyzed in a drunken stupor". Look at those jakes holding up the lamp post...

Down here we use the term "jack-legged" for poor craftsmanship, or a "jack-leg" as a name for an unlicensed contractor. Sort of like "shade tree" mechanic.

"Bubba hired some jack-leg electrician to wire his trailer, and it burnt to the ground last night."

"That's sure some jack-legged work you're doing this morning. Did you take drunk last night?"

That's another one I don't here a lot of anymore.... "take drunk" instead of get drunk. I've heard a lot of old-timers use that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or the millennial equivalent: "allsome".

I always heard "jake" as a form of "jake legged" as in "paralyzed in a drunken stupor". Look at those jakes holding up the lamp post...

That's a legacy of the ginger-jake epidemic of the twenties, where alcoholics poisoned themselves drinking ginger extract. Paralysis was one side effect, and a stumbling, shaky, stiff-legged walk was called "jake leg."

"Jake" in that sense was a Southern dialect corruption of "Jamacia," as in "Jamacian Ginger," which was tainted with a chemical substance by its manufacturers in an effort to get around Federal pure-drug laws. That chemical turned out to be a dangerous neurotoxin. Oopsie.

 

[skydog757]

The word "square" is used in a lot of ways with different meanings:

We're square about that, right?

Hey, you're gettin' three squares a day. Don't complain.

Back to square one.

Don't be a square, man. Let's party!!

Sounds like a square deal.