Terms Which Have Disappeared

[tonyb]

How about...

SNAFU

FUBAR

TARFU

I don't think anyone's used those since the Vietnam War at least.

Bonus-points if you know what they mean.

Around here the first two are still in common usage, and I assume that most people who use them know that they are acronyms, and they know what those acronyms are.

I can guess at the third. Can't say that I've heard it before. Not as I recall, anyway.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm 30, have never served in the military & know what all 3 mean.

 

[Renault]

Around here a clogged drain, an obstructed pipe, a congested nose -- anything in which a free flow has become less free than it should be -- is "stopped up tighter than Sip's [aliementary canal.]"

I have never been able to figure out who Sip is, or what happened to constipate him so, but he has long been a legendary figure in our regional folklore.

Here it's "tighter than Dick's hat band."
Momma used to always say "he's so tight his shoes squeak!" For a stingy fellow.

My all time favorite that I still use is "heavier than a dead Baptist preacher!"

 

[Shangas]

I'd break down the acronyms, but that's probably get me banned, haha!

 

[rjb1]

I know what two out of three mean. The third escapes me at the moment, but it will probably come to me later.
A local (very low-class) bar has the clever name: "foo - BAR" and such is on the sign above the door. Based on the look of the place and neighborhood it's in, I suspect that the name fits the condition of many of its patrons on a typical Saturday night.
I always wonder how many people "get it".

 

[Atticus Finch]

Long gone terms from my childhood:

"Priming tobacco". Kids in North Carolina once made good summer money working on tobacco farms. Beginning in July, the tobacco would be cropped or primed, that is, each leaf would be harvested from the plant as it matured starting from the ground and moving up the plant. Of course, this means each field would be primed (by hand) several times during the growing season.

"Tying tobacco". As the tobacco was harvested "hands" of it would be tied onto tobacco sticks and hung in the hot tobacco barns to cure.

Now all tobacco production is mechanized and the crop is cured in bulk barns. Kids here no longer have a clue how to prime tobacco or how to tie it onto a tobacco stick.


AF

 

[earl]

Around here the first two are still in common usage, and I assume that most people who use them know that they are acronyms, and they know what those acronyms are.

I can guess at the third. Can't say that I've heard it before. Not as I recall, anyway.

As for current usage, only 1 that stands out is SNAFU, though it's rarely used. As I recall, it originated in WWII. Earl

 

[vitanola]

How about...

SNAFU

FUBAR

TARFU

I don't think anyone's used those since the Vietnam War at least.

Bonus-points if you know what they mean.

[video=youtube_share;ISUaeLzVMH0]http://youtu.be/ISUaeLzVMH0[/video]

 

[bburtner@moran]

Fine as frog hair,and you can`t even see that.

 

[fashion frank]

Every East Coast Italian over the age of 50 I've ever known grew up calling it "macaroni." Nobody here ever heard the word "pasta" until the '80s, when suddenly it was everywhere. It was as though a law was passed all of a sudden, and nobody ever bothered to tell us.

"Pasta" smacks to me of people who display their macaroni in glass jars on the counter so you won't know they actually just buy Prince's or Mueller's down at the grocery store just like the proles.

Yea that's what we call it and sauce is in fact "gravy"

Also "whats the rumpus" was another one . " so 's your old man " " your ma wears combat boots" calling your old man "pops".

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[vitanola]

Ernie: "Say, Bill. What does the surgeon do after he operates on your father?"

Bill: "Why, I don't know, Ernie. What does the surgeon do after he operates on my father?

Ernie: "Sews your Old Man, Bill, sews your old man!"

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

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.

 

[fashion frank]

The term "five and dime" has gone extinct, too. .

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

 

[dh66]

The five & dime is still around, at least where I live, they just call it the dollar store now. Inflation I guess

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

 

[tonyb]

Beat me to it, dh66. The dollar store sells much of the kinds of stuff that was once carried by the five and dime.

But the vibe ain't the same. Not that I would expect it to be.

As to Kilo November's second observation ...

The lunch counter has all but disappeared. Restaurants such as Denny's still have counter seating, but those are exclusively restaurants. Couldn't by a pair of shoelaces there, or a bottle of aspirin, or a notepad.

 

[earl]

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.

Ah, yes, recall as a child eating at a Woolworth "lunch counter." Earl

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Restaurants such as Denny's still have counter seating, but those are exclusively restaurants. Couldn't by a pair of shoelaces there, or a bottle of aspirin, or a notepad.

... 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.

 

[Cigarband]

Growing up in the 60s here in Cleveland Ohio, if it wasn't spaghetti, it was macaroni. Nobody called it pasta till the 80s. Noodles were always called "egg noodles." You ate them with Beef Stroganoff. Spaghetti sauce was spaghetti sauce. The first major canned Italian food company, Chef Boy-ar-dy started in Cleveland, and since they called it sauce we all did. We never ate just plain spaghetti either, it was always spaghetti and meatballs, and sausage, and lotsa cheese. And here in Northeastern Ohio we still say pasta fazool. Remember that the major dialects (regional varieties) of Italian include: toscano, abruzzese, pugliese, umbro, laziale, marchigiano centrale, cicolano-reatino-aquilano, and molisano. And there are several distinct local languages in Italy, including emiliano-romagnolo (emiliano, emilian, sammarinese), friulano (alternate names include furlan, frioulan, frioulian, priulian), ligure (lìguru), lombardo, napoletano (nnapulitano), piemontese (piemontéis), sardarese (a language of Central Sardinian also known as sard or logudorese), sardu (a language of Southern Sardinian also known as campidanese or campidese), siciliano (sicilianu), and veneto (venet). All the different regional American usages i.e. "sauce" or "gravy," etc. can most likely be due to Italians from different regions speaking different dialects settling in different areas of the USA. Followed by their non-Italian neighbors mangling everything they heard.LOL

 

[Renault]

When milk turned, my grandmother said it went "blinky".

 

[Shangas]

I've heard (and occasionally used) the phrase "on the blink" if something (computer, TV, printer, etc) happened to malfunction. I wonder if there's some sort of relation?