Terms Which Have Disappeared

[BlueTrain]

I'm from a coal mining region of the country. At one time not really that long ago, meaning in my lifetime, miners lived in company housing and shopped at the company store. I don't know how the prices were but there were few other nearby places to shop. Travel was not as easy as it is now and cars less common. I also don't know what rents were nor what the houses were like, either. The supervisors also lived in the coal camps but typically in a bigger, if not necessarily nicer, house that was invariably a little further up the hill. I doubt that miners were required to lived in company houses but that was also a day when men would be more likely to walk to work instead of driving.

 

[MisterCairo]

I know someone who has that whiny, scratchy dial-up sound as his mobile phone ring tone!

And thank goodness, too. I couldn't stand losing the internet every time the phone rang. And that dial up tone was the stuff of nightmares.

 

[Bushman]

I know someone who has that whiny, scratchy dial-up sound as his mobile phone ring tone!

Well, I suppose that's one way to make sure you reach for the phone right away.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I owe my soul to the company store.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I owe my soul to the company store.

One way or another, most of us still do.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I owe my soul to the company store.

Love that song. I can remember listening to Ernie Ford's recording when I was a baby, and I think one of the first questions that I ever asked my Mom once I began talking was what a "company stowe" was.

 

[Stearmen]

 

[Stearmen]

Here is a fun one for all of you! Do you call the grinding devise under your sink a Garbage Disposal, or a Garbage Disposer were you come from? I always said Disposer!

 

[Upgrade]

I call it the garbage disposal, but the brand name, Insinkerator seems to be common too.

There was an American dialect survey conducted with geographic locations maps.

https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html

Pillbug vs. roly poly, pitcher and picture, Friday vs. Fridee etc.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Never knew anyone who had one -- we just throw our kitchen waste in a container we call "the dump." Not a garbage can, not a trash can, not a rubbish can, not a bin. Just "the dump." "Throw those chicken bones in the dump." "Throw those potato peelings in the dump."

The contents of "the dump" are then taken to "the dump." Not the transfer station, not the skip, just "the dump."

 

[Fading Fast]

While on the subject, I remember a few of the more prosperous homes in the '70s having their own trash compactor in their kitchen - about half the size of a dish washer, it did what it sounds like, you put your trash in there, turned it on and it mashed it down. I guess the idea was you'd have less trash to put out as, in our town, you paid by the can.

Even as a kid, I found the idea a bit strange as who'd want their smashed garbage, effectively, sitting in their house for days (as it could take that long to fill it up). Back in my frugal childhood home, we'd bag ours each night, tie it tight, put it in the can, seal the lid and move on. Do those things - home trash compactors - even exist anymore?

 

[LizzieMaine]

For that people need a machine? We always just put our foot in the can and stomped the garbage down to make room for more.

 

[Trenchfriend]

How much got still the classic wooden clothes-hamper/laundry-basket, today?

I still know the folksy "laundry-pouffe".

 

[MisterCairo]

Here is a fun one for all of you! Do you call the grinding devise under your sink a Garbage Disposal, or a Garbage Disposer were you come from? I always said Disposer!

Garburator. We don't have one, they often get jammed, but on board ship, far enough out to sea in a non-protected zone we would garburate vegetable, fruit and some meat products for disposal through the grey water system.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

When was the last time you heard someone called a "heel"?

 

[HudsonHawk]

When was the last time you heard someone called a "heel"?

The antagonists in professional wrestling storylines are called "heels". The good guys are called "faces".

 

[MisterCairo]

Does anyone still say "three sheets to the wind" to mean drunk?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's still popular here, where the days of sailing ships are not forgotten, or even over.

I was always fond of "in the grip of the grape," but most of our local drunks here prefer beer.

 

[Upgrade]

Ballast Point sells Three Sheets Rum

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The metaphorical expressions for drunkenness are outnumbered only perhaps by those for masturbation.