Terms Which Have Disappeared

[BlueTrain]

This is a forum for casual conversation in the form of posting and not a place where anything will be graded. Not officially, anyway, although it may become the subject of a dispute. In any event, no requirement for proper spelling will be expected, provided the intended meaning is conveyed. Others may have their own ideas on the subject, of course.

Of terms that may or may not still be in use, does anyone say "pulling your leg?" Or being sent on a snipe hunt, which usually involves being left holding the bag (but not the same bag you let the cat out of)? Or being made sport of? Does anyone ever get your goat? Ever have a close shave? Where can we see the nick of time? If dawn has a crack, what about dusk?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dawn cracks, dusk "gathers."

 

[BlueTrain]

We go roaming in the dusk.

 

[BlueTrain]

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Where's the water closet?

 

[2jakes]

Whatever floats your boat.

I'll run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it!

 

[LizzieMaine]

W. C. Fields got in trouble during his first radio appearance on the Chase & Sanborn Hour in 1937, when he ad-libbed a joke based on the British meaning of "W. C."

For the remainder of his tenure on that program, the rest of the cast was required to call him "Bill."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Whenever we got to cutting up rough as kids my grandmother would stand in the doorway, shake her fist at us and yell "IF YOU KIDS DON'T BE QUIET I'LL LAY YOU OUT IN LAVENDER!"

Which was a lot more entertaining than my mother's approach, which was simply to say "Shut up or I'll kill you."

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Here is another term I got from the Dragnet radio shows. I believe they have perished in the past 40 years, "women's hotel".

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ even into the '80s, NYC still had a lot of those. I dated a girl who lived in one as it was a great way for young, single women to get affordable apartments in the city with an added layer of safety.

I also read a recently published novel "The Dollhouse" by Fiona Davis which is set in the '50s, primarily, in the Barbizon Hotel - a famous NYC "women's hotel."

 

[HudsonHawk]

We go roaming in the dusk.

Gabby Hartnett hit a 2-out, 2-strike homer in the "gloamin" in 1938.

 

[Stearmen]

For Pete's sake!

 

[tonyb]

"See you in the funny papers."

 

[BlueTrain]

I've only heard one person use that term and that was when I was still in grade school. She had a wind-up Victrola in her rather bare home two or three blocks from where we lived.

The photos of the old gas stations in another thread reminded me of another expression, which I believe has largely become obsolete now. One of the gas stations had the term "cut-rate" out front in a couple of places. I barely remember one store in my home town that used the term. I believe it was largely replaced by the term "discount," probably in the 1950s, once the so-called big box stores started appearing.

The discount stores, a term not used as much as it used to be, I believe, gave rise to the "fair trade laws," which was a form of price maintenance intended to protect small-town merchants (or more correctly, small merchants) from the big chains. I've never read any such law, so how the details got worked out, I don't know. Ultimately they resulted in a higher cost to the consumer, so they eventually disappeared--along with the small merchants.

 

[vitanola]

We go roaming in the dusk.

Perhaps you do.

I go roaming in the gloaming.

She had a wind-up Victrola in her... home...

Who doesn't?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've only heard one person use that term and that was when I was still in grade school. She had a wind-up Victrola in her rather bare home two or three blocks from where we lived.

The photos of the old gas stations in another thread reminded me of another expression, which I believe has largely become obsolete now. One of the gas stations had the term "cut-rate" out front in a couple of places. I barely remember one store in my home town that used the term. I believe it was largely replaced by the term "discount," probably in the 1950s, once the so-called big box stores started appearing.

The discount stores, a term not used as much as it used to be, I believe, gave rise to the "fair trade laws," which was a form of price maintenance intended to protect small-town merchants (or more correctly, small merchants) from the big chains. I've never read any such law, so how the details got worked out, I don't know. Ultimately they resulted in a higher cost to the consumer, so they eventually disappeared--along with the small merchants.

We had a very popular "Cut Rate" drug store in town here. The Boys did away with that phrase because it gave the connotation of cheapness and crookedness -- "Discount" was seen to have a more positive, less fly-by-night connotation.

Not to be confused of course with "Cut Rite," which is a phrase applied only to wax paper.

The term "Victrola" was always used in our family to refer to a phonograph, well into the 1970s. If I was in the other room playing "Does Your Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight" over and over and over again, as I tended to do when I was five years old, my mother would scream from the kitchen "SHUT OFF THAT G-D VICTROLA OR IT'S GOIN' OUT THE DOOR FLYIN'!"

 

[BlueTrain]

Not only do we not have a Victrola, we don't even have a record player in the house. However, when my father remarried, my stepmother had a Victrola, which still worked. There was a small selection of old 78rpm records, one of which was a recording of "Tiptoe through the tulips." Don't remember any of the other titles.

 

[MisterCairo]

This is a forum for casual conversation in the form of posting and not a place where anything will be graded. Not officially, anyway, although it may become the subject of a dispute. In any event, no requirement for proper spelling will be expected, provided the intended meaning is conveyed. Others may have their own ideas on the subject, of course.

Lose our sense of humour (with a "u"), did we?

Lighten.

Up.

It was a joke.

 

[MisterCairo]

Although there are some spelling freaks that get their "panties curled" if words are
spelt inkerrectly!

I think you mean "knickers in a twist"...

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, I was dead serious.