Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

It was common as far back as the 1910s for newspapers to put out "Week-End Supplements," which were usually rotogravure sections featuring the most impressive news photos of the week just drawing to a close. These eventually evolved into the fancy "Coloroto" magazine sections of later decades, and then devolved into the chintzy little "Parade" type supplements that linger on today.

While a few workplaces introduced the five-day week around the turn of the century, until the mid-1930s the six-day week was the norm for most working Americans. Most offices and nearly all factories were open for a half-day on Saturdays. The five-day 40-hour work week, long a goal of organized labor, was a pillar of many of the industrial codes imposed by the National Recovery Administration, and that led, eventually, to its institutionalization under the Fair Labor Practices act of 1938. That was the beginning of the modern concept of the "weekend."

 

[Stearmen]

 

[BlueTrain]

The weekend is probably safe but the eight hour paid workday is slipping. Extra unpaid time is apparently expected by some employers. It can make it difficult to get to your second job on time.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Ribald" is a nice one that I just used in another post that is, I think, disappearing.

It has a "feel" similar to its meaning, but you rarely hear it used at all today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Harold! If you and your friend wish to exchange rrrrribald stories, please do it downstairs!"

 

[Upgrade]

The perennial Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life has the classic line by Mary:

"He's making violent love to me, Mother!"

which would be completely misinterpreted today.

 

[Fading Fast]

The perennial Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life has the classic line by Mary:

"He's making violent love to me, Mother!"

which would be completely misinterpreted today.

Even just the "making love to me" part would be completely misunderstood today. Then, it seemed to mean, he was wooing me, trying to get me interested in dating him, or going steady with him or even marrying him, but it definitely did not mean the literal interpretation of the phrase as we use it today.

It's kind of funny as if you haven't clicked off your modern language filtering system when turn on an old movie, you can be shock at all the "he made love to me all night," "two men made love to me tonight," etc., lines you'll hear being said by these very proper-looking young women.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was also used to refer to what is euphemistically known as "heavy petting," or everything and anything short of actual intercourse. All those proper young women may have paid lip service to chastity, but Dr. Kinsey found out better.

 

[Fading Fast]

It was also used to refer to what is euphemistically known as "heavy petting," or everything and anything short of actual intercourse. All those proper young women may have paid lip service to chastity, but Dr. Kinsey found out better.

From what I've read, short-of-intercourse is accurate with the "completion" coming from women using their hands (seems to be how many men made it through college). In the contemporaneous literature, oral sex is almost never even alluded to. Was oral sex "outside the norm," in reality (it what was actually going on), or just not talked about even in the more open books?

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Whatever gives satisfaction and relief to both parties is good and right, and even in the best sense normal, provided -- as is not likely to happen in sound and healthy persons -- no injury is effected. Fellatio and cunninglingus, the impulse to either of which arises spontaneously in men and women who have never heard of such practices -- are perhaps the chief of these contacts. It is extremely common."

-- Havelock Ellis, "Psychology of Sex," published in 1935 and widely sold in the Sears catalog thruout the late 1930s and early 1940s.

When Charlie Chaplin was taken to court by Lita Grey in 1927, one of the things her lawyer accused him of was a taste for oral sex. "But all married people do that!" was Charlie's reply.

Louise Brooks, in one of her memoirs, recalled participating in an evening of carnality in the company of Chaplin and another actress, during which Charlie painted part of himself bright red with Mercurochrome, and then capered wildly about the room in an excited state seeking further stimulus.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Thank you Lizzie. As always an answer well supported with evidence.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was also an evanescent pop tune from 1935 called "Sugar Plum," which included the following extraordinary lyric, to be sung by a femal vocalist:

"I'm his Eskimo Pie and he's my ice cream cone! Yum yummy yum!"

Yes, it means exactly what you think it does. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

 

[ChrisB]

"I'm his Eskimo Pie and he's my ice cream cone! Yum yummy yum!"

Yes, it means exactly what you think it does. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

You will hear similar lyrics in just about anything sung by Bessie Smith, and some of the tunes Jelly Roll Morton sang in his youth were obscene even by today's standards.

 

[Stearmen]

There was also an evanescent pop tune from 1935 called "Sugar Plum," which included the following extraordinary lyric, to be sung by a femal vocalist:

"I'm his Eskimo Pie and he's my ice cream cone! Yum yummy yum!"

Yes, it means exactly what you think it does. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

 

[Upgrade]

I remember there was a list of sexually explicit songs from the 1930s. One that stood out in particular was "My Girl's Pussy" by Harry Roy and his Orchestra which is exactly what you think it is. It was memorably featured in an episode of Boardwalk Empire, shouted at the top of someone's lungs.

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6908755/sexually-explicit-songs-from-the-1930s-who-knew

I had a passing interest in tracking down the 78 rpm records, which do exist, and most weren't carried by the major labels.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I remember there was a list of sexually explicit songs from the 1930s. One that stood out in particular was "My Girl's Pussy" by Harry Roy and his Orchestra which is exactly what you think it is.

"Seldom plays and never purrs,
But I like the thoughts it stirs,
And I never mind because it’s hers;
It’s my girl’s pussy."

Ok.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Harry Roy was a British bandleader who made a point of recording songs specializing in smirky innuendo. Another of his big hits was "She Had To Go And Lose It At The Astor," which spends several verses describing that irreplaceable thing that young Minnie lost, and speculating to whom she might have lost it, only to have the lost item turn out to be a sable cape.

This type of number was a British specialty in popular music between the wars. A comedian named Tommy Trinder, who had sort of a "cheeky chappie" stage persona, recorded a number called "You Can't Do That There Here," in which he describes a young lady who wants to play Josephine to his Napoleon, noting that "she loves me for my bony part, but you can't do that there here!"

American performers recorded such numbers less often, although the Dorsey Brothers' 1934 recording of "Annie's Cousin Fanny" is quite hilarious -- especially since the voice declaring "you'll never see another Fanny half as pretty as mine" belongs to none other than starchy conservative stick-in-the-mud Glenn Miller. There's also a Jimmy Dorsey recording from the early forties called "She Said No," in which Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell bat back and forth with a lyric that goes "She said no, I said yes, she finally said yes yes yes yes..." only to have it turn out that what she was saying "yes" to was a subscription to "Liberty" magazine.

 

[docneg]

"Never dirty, always clean
In giving thrills, never mean
And it's the best I've ever seen,
It's my girl's pussy!"

It never fails to make me guffaw. Harry Roy actually married Swedish royalty, if you can imagine that.
Surely there must be a duchess out there for me.

 

[Upgrade]

I also recall the Ames Brothers doing a similar bait-and-switch in 1954 with "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" which describes the "lady's" indiscretions around town right up to the last line.

And then of course there's Ruth Wallis, the Queen of the Double Entendre.

 

[Stearmen]

There was also an evanescent pop tune from 1935 called "Sugar Plum," which included the following extraordinary lyric, to be sung by a femal vocalist:

"I'm his Eskimo Pie and he's my ice cream cone! Yum yummy yum!"

Yes, it means exactly what you think it does. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

I just noticed this line in Lollipop: Crazy way he thrills me
Tell you why
Just like a lightning from the sky
He loves to kiss me till I can't see straight
GEE, MY LOLLIPOP IS GREAT