Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Stanley Doble]

Hold on tight to your dreams and don't let anyone steal them away. They may be cheap trashy childish dreams but they are your dreams and if you let them die so will you.

 

[sheeplady]

I'm with you on the morals' angle - other than Nick (a wonderful character), Gatsby is the only one that has any values or integrity. But he is bonkers as she is not worth it. It has always been the biggest challenge for me with the novel: what does he see in her? Yes, I understand what she represented for him in youth: the unattainable, the uber-class, the money, the acceptance, the social standing, and the dish ran away with the spoon. But after having lived through WWI and all the intelligence and effort to make his fortune, he never saw it for what it was - a youthful crush on a flighty, self-absorbed girl? Really? It is the "perfect" novel in many ways, but all that for her? Hence, the motivation of the protagonist is hard for me to believe.

It's obsession, which doesn't make any sense. Look at Romeo and Juliet, The Play about obsession, that doesn't make any sense either. Gatsby isn't in love with the real Daisy- he's obsessed with the image he believes she represents (and everything you wrote about). Obsessions aren't logical.

Even if you love someone, you don't stalk them by buying a house across the river from them. You don't throw lavish parties hoping they will show. When you love someone, you don't become so consumed that your house goes into decay around you. Once Gatsby has Daisy in an affair, he slides into some weird mental state (I don't want to say a depression, but it is more a funk) where he fires all his staff because "they talk" about her coming over. The staff let his home go and are shady, but he doesn't seem to notice.

That's all obsessive behavior and (I believe) a sign of some type of mental deficiency. I've always personally wondered if Gatsby wasn't somewhat psychologically damaged in the war. He seems to be stunted in late teenager phase- right when he left to fight. I'm talking about the phase where someone will "just die" if so-and-so won't go out with him. Things like throwing a party just so your crush will show up is something a melodramatic teenager would do. Given how much the war hurt so many young men, I wouldn't doubt that could be true.

 

[Stanley Doble]

You have to remember that Gatsby was a phony and his life was a fiction. I believe he made some money in partnership with Wolfsheim the gambler and fixer and spent it all putting up a front to get Daisy back. I could go into all the ways a wise guy could rent a big house furnished, get his clothes and cars cheap, and look like a million bucks for $50,000 to $100,000 (1921 dollars).

By the end of the summer Gatsby was broke. The parties were no more, the staff of servants replaced by friends of Wolfsheim who may have needed a place to hide out, no doubt he was behind in the rent and utilities, and desperate to complete the deal in hot bonds he needed for getaway money.

The book mentions the drug stores which were a front for bootlegging, an oil deal that probably involved a stock scam, and some kind of shady bond deals that landed one of the gang in jail for a month. The day after Gatsby's murder, Nick takes a call at his house, reporting that young Parke has been picked up while passing stolen bonds.

All this could have made him some fast money but not the millions he appeared to have.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Who knows the secrets of the human heart? Why does anybody fall in love with anybody? People fall in love with unsuitable partners all the time and get in trouble for it. Most of the time onlookers can't figure out what they see in each other.

Gatsby spoke of erasing time, turning back the clock and starting over. This meant going back to Louisville and getting married at Daisy's parents house, the way they should have back in 1917 or 1918. Then starting over as if the last 4 years never happened. Maybe he thought starting from scratch with no money and no job was romantic, in any case, it is what they would have done if she had married him instead of Tom Buchanan.

 

[Harp]

Who knows the secrets of the human heart?

"...the heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, and in silence sealed."
---Charlotte Bronte

 

[Stanley Doble]

"That's all obsessive behavior and (I believe) a sign of some type of mental deficiency. I've always personally wondered if Gatsby wasn't somewhat psychologically damaged in the war. He seems to be stunted in late teenager phase- right when he left to fight. I'm talking about the phase where someone will "just die" if so-and-so won't go out with him. Things like throwing a party just so your crush will show up is something a melodramatic teenager would do. Given how much the war hurt so many young men, I wouldn't doubt that could be true. "

This part sounds right. I think you have it. It could be that some trauma drove him to obsess about the last time he felt happy and safe, with Daisy in Louisville. Feeling that if he could only turn back time and start over, everything would be all right.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I hate to be a buzz kill, but this is the "Terms Which Have Disappeared" thread, not "The Great Gatsby" thread.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I hate to be a buzz kill, but this is the "Terms Which Have Disappeared" thread, not "The Great Gatsby" thread.

Sorry, old sport.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Right, like this is the first time this thread has been hijacked. It's already more discursive than Tristram Shandy.

Sorry we are boring you. Time to lay off.

 

[Stanley Doble]

What does it mean to call someone a pill? I know it is an old expression from the twenties thirties and forties. I think it means someone is a boring or annoying. Does anyone have an explanation or derivation or a definition of what it means to be a pill?

 

[Zombie_61]

What does it mean to call someone a pill? I know it is an old expression from the twenties thirties and forties. I think it means someone is a boring or annoying. Does anyone have an explanation or derivation or a definition of what it means to be a pill?

In that context, a pill is someone who is unpleasant or difficult to deal with.

 

[HudsonHawk]

In that context, a pill is someone who is unpleasant or difficult to deal with.

Not to be confused with calling someone a "pistol", which means they are full of energy and enthusiam. Which is similar in that regard to "ginger". "Ginger" is a popular term in baseball as in "how 'bout a little ginger out there" type of chatter among players. Incidentally, "the Ginger Kid" was the nickname of Buck Weaver, probably the only sympathetic character in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

 

[Stearmen]

Knee high to a grasshopper. And, knee high by the Forth of July.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm sure this one has been posted here, but I heard "I remember the 'nickel candy bar'" enough that it became a short-hand for describing when things used to cost less or when you could get value for your money. At least that is how my Dad and his friends all used it. Was that an expression that was used more broadly than the little insular world that I heard it in?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

"I remember the 'nickel candy bar'"

I've never heard this a short-hand, but I do have vivid memories of nickel candy bars. We bought them most often at the candy counter at the front of Josephine's Market, a family-owned grocery across the street from our town's elementary school. If you didn't have a nickel, but could scrape together three cents, you could get a very thin chocolate bar with some peanut pieces called a "Lunch Bar".

Another thing I remember about nickel candy bars is the adults in my neighborhood expressing shock at candy bars costing a nickel. It usually went along the lines of, "When I was a boy, you could get a whole bag full of candy for a nickel!"

 

[fashion frank]

In that context, a pill is someone who is unpleasant or difficult to deal with.

Yes Like as in "hard to swallow "or "hard to take " as in a pill , also someone who is boring " he's being a real pill"

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[fashion frank]

I've never heard this a short-hand, but I do have vivid memories of nickel candy bars.

Another thing I remember about nickel candy bars is the adults in my neighborhood expressing shock at candy bars costing a nickel. It usually went along the lines of, "When I was a boy, you could get a whole bag full of candy for a nickel!"

Hey I remember those all to well ,and it was years and years before the price ever went above a nickel.

I have already mentioned these also but do you remember "penny candy " and better yet "2 for a penny candy".

Boy kids really get ripped off these days !

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[Stanley Doble]

I remember nickel candy bars and 2 for a penny and 3 for a penny candies, barely. Don't remember the 5 cent candy bar expression.

In the twenties there was a catch phrase "what this country needs is a good five cent cigar". Did it start as a political slogan?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember nickel candy bars and 2 for a penny and 3 for a penny candies, barely. Don't remember the 5 cent candy bar expression.

In the twenties there was a catch phrase "what this country needs is a good five cent cigar". Did it start as a political slogan?

It was a remark made in the Senate by Thomas Marshall of Indiana, then the Vice President. Some windbag senator had just finished giving a long laundry list of what he felt the country needed, and Marshall stood up next and brought down the chamber with his observation that "What this country really needs is a good five cent cigar."

We used to sell two-for-seven-cents cigars at our gas station. Mr. Marshall would not have approved of them.

 

[Mr Oldschool]

In the twenties there was a catch phrase "what this country needs is a good five cent cigar". Did it start as a political slogan?

I just watched All The King's Men Saturday night, and I think they used that expression in it, talking about politicians who make down-homey appeals to the common man.

Yes Like as in "hard to swallow "or "hard to take " as in a pill , also someone who is boring " he's being a real pill"

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

My mom used to call me a pill if I was doing something she thought was silly.