Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

Listening to a radio program from 1934, I just heard one character call another "you old sultan!" Since the individual thus referred to was not the elderly ruler of a Muslim principality, I think we can go with the seconday slang meaning of "a particularly smug and self-satified gentleman."

 

[scottyrocks]

Some expressions still survive even though the technology it was based on has died out/passed from popular usage:

It takes a while to warm up (vacuum tubes)

This is still true for cars, although with fuel injection it's not as obvious.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, it's pretty obvious in the wintertime.

 

[Fading Fast]

I only ever hear it now in combination words like "speed-dial" or "redial." And you never see ads anymore on the sides of trucks that say "Dial LY 4-8451"

Or, even better "dial Murray Hill 4-2653" where everyone knew "Murray Hill" meant dial "MU" the first two numbers of that local exchange.

It's amazing how quickly that all went away, but growing up in the late '60s / '70s, referring to telephone numbers that way was still common - maybe not the dominant norm, but still quite common. I grew up in the "Kilmer" exchange in NJ (named for the army camp "Camp Kilmer") and it was used all the time - and advertised by business that way when giving out their phone number.

 

[BlueTrain]

Not only do I remember that practice (our phone number was Garden 5-4155), I also remember when the practice began. There was a time when you only had to dial 4155--I think! But that was also when people would write "city" on envelopes when the address was within the city. And the parking meters in front of the post office took a penny. But I don't remember when the meters were first installed.

Other things I remember from that period include when the street our house was on being paved. Before, the street was paved with rock or cobbles. There was a curb already. It was paved with asphalt and I don't think it's been repaved since then.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One reason why exchange names lingered as long as they did is that there was an organized resistance to their elimination, especially in cities -- where they had significance as designators of neighborhoods far beyond their utility to the phone company. "All Number Calling" was rolled out starting in the late fifties -- but it wasn't fully implemented until twenty years later.

The "two letter-five number" system took almost as long to implement -- it was established as a new standard in the late twenties, but there were still holdouts for three-letter-four-number and two-letter-four-number into the mid-fifties. A lot of local identity was tied in up in, not just the exchange names, but in how they were presented. Bostonians really liked that the Hubbard exchange was dialed as HUB.

Four or five number dialing lasted here until the early 1990s. I was very annoyed when it went away, and I'm even more annoyed that ten-digit dialing is becoming the new standard. The ridiculous phone system we have at work cuts you off after entering four or five digits if you wait too long between pressing buttons, as when you squint at the phone number on the wall list to make sure you're getting it right.

 

[BlueTrain]

When I say I remember when it (the eight digit phone number) was implemented, what I really mean is that I remember from before it was implemented. I just don't know when it was. I also remember, within a couple of years, when we got a cord for the handset on the phone that was curly and not straight. Don't know the right term, though. But a year or two later we moved to the country and had no phone at all. They had only gotten electricity less than ten years earlier. And yes, it was a log house way, way out in the country.

Do radio preachers still ask people to "send in them cards and letters; help keep this program on the air!" ?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There used to be a fellow on the shortwave, Pastor Gene Scott, whose entire program consisted of increasingly belligerent demands that the listening audience call in with donations. He'd breathe asthmatically into the microphone, in a hard, threatening voice, "GET ON THAT PHONE NOW." If ever there was a gentleman of the cloth who deserved to be on the wrong end of a Whip Of Cords, it was Pastor Gene.

 

[BlueTrain]

I have been subjected to sermons that could only be described as tantrums. I know you're supposed to fear God but some preachers are pretty scary, too.

I also recall, and I've almost certainly mentioned this before, a local TV program called something like "Ask the pastors." There was a Protestant clergyman (which church I don't know) and a Roman Catholic clergyman. They would take calls from listeners and answer questions about church and religion, or at least make an attempt. Sometimes they would sit there and the phone wouldn't ring. I imagine that people there weren't as religious as they were thought to be or maybe they just thought they knew all the answers. I don't even know all the questions myself.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember a show like that here. It was on Thursday nights at 7, when most of the religious people were watching "Tic Tac Dough."

 

[Upgrade]

I still have a rotary phone that's been fitted with a pulse to tone convertor to work with an inherited landline.

It still works, but entering a full ten digit number can get tiresome.

Speaking of which, "off the hook", "ringing off the hook", or even "the phone is ringing" are still occasionally used even if the technology it was based on has been replaced.

 

[scottyrocks]

Oh, it's pretty obvious in the wintertime.

Not obvious. Not as obvious.

Starting up my '71 Corolla at the time I had it during the '70s, vs my '15 Civic in the dead of winter shows how not as obvious it is that a car needs to warm up. '15 fuel-injected car - start, buckle, drive away. 1970s carbureted car - start, buckle, and . . . wait.

 

[scottyrocks]

I still have a rotary phone that's been fitted with a pulse to tone convertor to work with an inherited landline.

Thanks for that. I have an old Stromberg-Carlson that I'd like t put back into service.

 

[BlueTrain]

I was only referring to actually getting the inside of the car warmed up. I never spent any time getting the engine warmed up before driving away but it still took four or five miles to where the heater would actually put out heat. That has been true on almost all the cars I ever had. I imagine that's one reason some cars have a remote starting system.

My first car was a 1962 Volkswagen that had a pitiful heater. My next car, a 1965 Land-Rover had a fairly good heater but the vehicle had no insulation and on a below zero day, it simply couldn't keep up. It was much better in hot weather.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Any time the temperature is below fifty degrees the Plodge needs to warm up before driving -- not the heater, the actual engine. Usually takes about five minutes, and I can hear the precise moment when the heat riser opens.

I had an air-cooled VW with those conceptual heater-boxes one winter when I was commuting thirty-five miles to work two hours before sunrise. I kept a pair of hunting socks in the car to keep from getting frostbite.

 

[BlueTrain]

Doesn't get that cold here. I have had problems with overheating, though.

 

[Zombie_61]

Or, even better "dial Murray Hill 4-2653" where everyone knew "Murray Hill" meant dial "MU" the first two numbers of that local exchange.

It's amazing how quickly that all went away, but growing up in the late '60s / '70s, referring to telephone numbers that way was still common - maybe not the dominant norm, but still quite common. I grew up in the "Kilmer" exchange in NJ (named for the army camp "Camp Kilmer") and it was used all the time - and advertised by business that way when giving out their phone number.

Ours was "OXbow 5-0534". Other parts of our fair city used "Oxford" as the exchange, but the end result was the same--you still dialed "69" before the other numbers.

I was only referring to actually getting the inside of the car warmed up. I never spent any time getting the engine warmed up before driving away but it still took four or five miles to where the heater would actually put out heat. That has been true on almost all the cars I ever had. I imagine that's one reason some cars have a remote starting system...

We've rarely had to deal with freezing temperatures in this part of southern California while I've been alive, but it can still get chilly here on occasion for us fair-weather wimps; not cold enough to snow, but enough to freeze the dew on the lawns and foliage to create frost. I've tried to explain to my wife a number of times that the heater in my truck (a 2007 Honda Ridgeline) won't work until the engine is warmed up, but she still complains about the cold for the 5-10 minutes it takes before the warm air flows out of the vents.

...My first car was a 1962 Volkswagen that had a pitiful heater...

That was one drawback to owning/driving an air-cooled Volkswagen--the heater was rarely up to the task, and the "defrost" vents often fogged the windshield faster than the occupants; I always kept a small squeegee in the car for such occasions.

As for warming up the engine, that was a necessity when driving an air-cooled Volkswagen because the oil had to be warm enough to flow through and lubricate the engine properly. This usually took only a couple of minutes (or, as one author put it, "About the time it takes to roll a cigarette and get it drawing properly") and maybe a few more minutes on colder days, but if you were in a hurry those extra minutes could be agonizing.

 

[tonyb]

It has gotten to where I have pretty much forgotten all but a couple three or four phone numbers. I just tap the name on my iPhone. Ten-digit "dialing" rarely makes any difference to me. And area codes are becoming increasingly meaningless. My phone number wears a Seattle area code, and I'm more than a thousand miles from there.

 

[St. Louis]

The eternal rain here in Missouri has made me grumpy, so I have a few impolite phrases, some of which I remember from my New Jersey childhood. I think all of these are now pretty much out of style:

"Aw, gowahhn" (Aw, go on)

"Aw, go jump inna lake!"

"Aw, go take a long walk offa short pier!"

"Ya Mothah wears Army boots!"

"Nerts!"

Then there's the one by my tenth grade Algebra teacher, who was a sour nun:

"Oh, come away with you!"

 

[Zombie_61]

It has gotten to where I have pretty much forgotten all but a couple three or four phone numbers. I just tap the name on my iPhone. Ten-digit "dialing" rarely makes any difference to me. And area codes are becoming increasingly meaningless. My phone number wears a Seattle area code, and I'm more than a thousand miles from there.

Modern phones might make calling someone easier, but in doing so they've eliminated the need for us to remember anyone's phone number who we call regularly. My best friend is a guy I've known for more than 40 years, but if I didn't have my cell phone with me I couldn't call him if my life depended on it because I don't know the number.