Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

... or a goldfish, or a model car kit, or an injection molded Creature from the Black Lagoon, or a kite, or a spool of thread, or yard goods, or shoe polish, or ,,,

While I'm on the topic of extinct retail, my home town had two drug stores with "soda fountains". For those of you too young to remember (I can't believe I'm using that phrase!), a soda fountain was like a lunch counter, except they served ice cream and soft drinks, not french fries and sandwiches.

We had a Newberry's dime store with a lunch counter until the late '90s, and a drug store with a soda fountain until about five years ago. Progress stinks.

The main difference between a dime store and a dollar store is that a dollar store deals primarily in what's euphemistically called "distressed merchandise:" discontinued goods, expired goods, odd lots, etc, and the store is usually run in a low-budget, no-frills manner. Dime store stuff was manufactured specifically to sell at low prices, and while the prices were low, an effort was still spent to maintain a level of service. Well into the sixties, most Woolworth stores had floorwalkers, just like the big full-price department stores.

And that's another term that's disappeared. When did you last hear of a "floorwalker?"

 

[tonyb]

Good point re: difference between the merchandise on offer at the dollar stores these days vs. that at the old five and dimes.

My limited experience with the dollar store a mile or so from where I sit at present has me thinking that they typically carry merchandise of certain general varieties that can be found with some consistency in the aisles there, but the specific brands and sizes and such is anything but consistent. I get the sense that if that merchandise didn't end up on the shelves of the dollar store, it would have been sent to the landfill.

It probably says more about me than the dollar store that I find it a little creepy in a way I can't really put my finger on. It's hard to beat their prices on some things, (candles come to mind), so they do get my business a couple-three times a year.

 

[Fading Fast]

We had a Newberry's dime store with a lunch counter until the late '90s, and a drug store with a soda fountain until about five years ago. Progress stinks.

The main difference between a dime store and a dollar store is that a dollar store deals primarily in what's euphemistically called "distressed merchandise:" discontinued goods, expired goods, odd lots, etc, and the store is usually run in a low-budget, no-frills manner. Dime store stuff was manufactured specifically to sell at low prices, and while the prices were low, an effort was still spent to maintain a level of service. Well into the sixties, most Woolworth stores had floorwalkers, just like the big full-price department stores.

And that's another term that's disappeared. When did you last hear of a "floorwalker?"

There's a scene in one of my favorite, lesser-known Christmas movies, "Holiday Affair" where Robert Mitchum's character - who just got fired from a department store for letting a customer (Janet Leigh) who is also a "comparison shopper" (also a bygone term) return something he shouldn't have - says "Little floorwalkers have big ears," to explain how he just got fired. When I worked for Sterns department store in the 1980s, some of the older employees still called the "floor managers" floorwalkers; but the official name was "floor manager" at the time.

Regarding the movie "Holiday Affair," there is a scene in NYC Central Park at the zoo that is an incredible time-travel moment as the zoo is still there today and, since most of the architecture is the same, you can tell exactly where it is filmed and what has changed in the, now, sixties years since it was made.

 

[Fading Fast]

The good old five and dime man I really miss those ,every small town had at least one .

Also speaking of "five and dime " my old man used to say to us kids every day when he came home from work and we used to be hiding in wait so we could hit him up for pocket change to go to the five and dime and buy
"2 penny " candy ( if you have ever heard that term by the way ) he would say
" you kid's are nickel and dimeing me to death " as in a chiseler !

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

Thank you for the memory, my Dad past away twenty-plus years ago, but I can hear him as if it was yesterday saying, "you kids are going to nickel and dime me to death," along with (whenever you told him that something was on sale that you needed) "all this money you are saving me will put me in the poor house." And the irony is, he was never nickeled and dimed, nor did we spend a cent that he didn't approve and - as opposed to what I observe in families today - my Dad made and controlled all the money in our house (until I got my first job as a teenager), it was "his money," and nothing ever got spent without his okay. I tried never to ask for money as it was not worth the lectures (which started with his growing up in the depression). Despite the tone of these comments, I respected how hard he had it and other than occasionally when it got ridiculous (for years we had to turn the water off as we were soaping up in the shower to save money), I respected then and now his views toward not wasting money.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Before "transistor radios" (now also a bygone term) replaced tube radios, drug stores had "tube testers". The do-it-yourself radio repair man (Remember television and radio repair shops? Ha!) could take his suspect tubes to the drug store and test them. When one was found wanting, he could buy a replacement right there.

Another entertainment term which has disappeared is "double-feature". Anyone seen any of those since the mid 1960's?

 

[tonyb]

...

Another entertainment term which has disappeared is "double-feature". Anyone seen any of those since the mid 1960's?

Only at the few remaining drive-ins, a topic discussed in another recent thread.

 

[Renault]

Our little hometown drugstore. Sis-in-law works here. Still has a nice soda fountain!

http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/3012-2992/lock-drugs#ReviewersPhotos

 

[LizzieMaine]

Before "transistor radios" (now also a bygone term) replaced tube radios, drug stores had "tube testers". The do-it-yourself radio repair man (Remember television and radio repair shops? Ha!) could take his suspect tubes to the drug store and test them. When one was found wanting, he could buy a replacement right there.

Another entertainment term which has disappeared is "double-feature". Anyone seen any of those since the mid 1960's?

Modern film distributors strongly and officially discourage the idea of a "double feature," and in fact most current booking contracts specifically prohibit two-films-for-one-ticket admission deals.

A lot of those drugstore tube testers were rigged, and those that weren't had a very dubious BAD--?--GOOD scale that made perfectly usable tubes look weaker than they actually were. I used to use the one at our local Radio Shack, and learned quickly never to trust it.

 

[tonyb]

So, do the distributors have some sort of "drive-in exemption," what with there being so few drive-ins that allowing them to show double features has little effect on the distributor's bottom line?

 

[LizzieMaine]

So, do the distributors have some sort of "drive-in exemption," what with there being so few drive-ins that allowing them to show double features has little effect on the distributor's bottom line?

Pretty much. A lot of the films shown at drive-ins are second-run, meaning they've already played out most of their drawing power, and they can be booked at a discount, or under various negotiated conditions.

 

[DesertDan]

Does anyone get asked "Paper or platic?" at the grocery store checkout anymore?

 

[fashion frank]

Ok. growing up I never heard on the phone "press one for spanish " or press anything for that matter since you would hear a real live person!

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[Shangas]

And that's another term that's disappeared. When did you last hear of a "floorwalker?"

"Are you being served...sir or madam, as the case may be?"
"I need the gents!"
"Upstairs, on the right. You should've gone when I first suggested it!"

 

[AtomicEraTom]

The IGA in town still offers the option. I miss paper grocery bags.

Does anyone get asked "Paper or platic?" at the grocery store checkout anymore?

 

[1930artdeco]

Before "transistor radios" (now also a bygone term) replaced tube radios, drug stores had "tube testers". The do-it-yourself radio repair man (Remember television and radio repair shops? Ha!) could take his suspect tubes to the drug store and test them. When one was found wanting, he could buy a replacement right there.

Another entertainment term which has disappeared is "double-feature". Anyone seen any of those since the mid 1960's?

Yes actually, Although I don't stay because I get home to late. They have them at the DRIVE-IN that I used to frequent (I can't due to work schedule).

 

[Zombie_61]

...The main difference between a dime store and a dollar store is that a dollar store deals primarily in what's euphemistically called "distressed merchandise:" discontinued goods, expired goods, odd lots, etc....

One of my friends calls the local dollar stores the "Making the best of a bad situation" stores. lol

...Another entertainment term which has disappeared is "double-feature". Anyone seen any of those since the mid 1960's?

We had two local theaters that ran double features into the mid-80s, but the movies they showed were usually at the end of their theatrical runs. Both theaters suffered earthquake damage in October of 1987; one was eventually torn down, and the other eventually became a mini-multiplex.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Here's another couple of extinct terms. With the disappearance of F.W. Woolworth, S.S. Kresge, G.C. Murphy, Ben Franklin, McCrory's, etc., The term "five and dime" has gone extinct, too. Concomitantly, a feature of five-and-dime stores, the "lunch counter" has also disappeared. One day, when children are taught about the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's, and the Greensboro Woolworth lunch counter sit-in is discussed, the teachers will have to explain both five-and-dime stores and lunch counters to the children.

They will also have to explain there was a time when black people were fighting to get INTO schools. Sorry if this sounds mean, I just watched Bill Cosby's Pound Cake speech and it reminded me how things have changed since the Civil Rights marches of the sixties.

 

[Touchofevil]

Does anyone get asked "Paper or platic?" at the grocery store checkout anymore?

Every time I purchase something and usually by whoever is bagging my purchased items.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Here's another one from a Dragnet episode I listened to yesterday, "sleeping porch". I imagine that ubiquitous air conditioning has done away with these in the US.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Here's another one from a Dragnet episode I listened to yesterday, "sleeping porch". I imagine that ubiquitous air conditioning has done away with these in the US.

When I was growing up in Florida, they were quite common. You still see them today on occasion, but mostly on things like lake cottages or hunting cabins, rarely in an every day residence.