Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

I wrote a poem a few years ago about a young lady I knew.

"Maine Lobster Festival 2013"

There was a young girl from South Main
Whose character was without stain.
But the Fleet sailed in,
She sank into sin,
And watched her life go down the drain."

 

[tonyb]

I wrote a poem a few years ago about a young lady I knew.

"Maine Lobster Festival 2013"

There was a young girl from South Main
Whose character was without stain.
But the Fleet sailed in,
She sank into sin,
And watched her life go down the drain."

As long as we're on a New England theme, what might we rhyme with "Nantucket"?

 

[Haversack]

Recall that Kipling coined the phrase "...Single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints."

A couple of war-time movies that address this in a round about way:

The opening scene in the 1943 patriotic musical and everybody-on-the-lot Paramount satire, Star Spangled Rhythm, has a trio of overly-made up young women waiting at the landing pier at San Pedro or Long Beach for the first boatload of sailors on liberty from the fleet anchored out to arrive. Dialogue: Brunette - "I hear they came all the way from Iceland." Blonde - "All the way from Iceland? That counts me out. I bruise too easy." And Betty Hutton sings a song later about how she's "Doing it for defense."

Similarly the 1944 Preston Sturges comedy The Miracle of Morgan's Creek has Trudy Cockenlocker waking up married and pregnant after an all-night send-off party for the troops. Only she can't remember which one it was...

The public still doesn't want to hear about this. Consider the uproar in Bremerton, Washington back in 2002 when the local paper there printed a story off the wire from Australian media about how sailors from off several US Navy ships caused the legal brothels of Perth, Australia to close from over-work.

 

[tonyb]

...

The public still doesn't want to hear about this. Consider the uproar in Bremerton, Washington back in 2002 when the local paper there printed a story off the wire from Australian media about how sailors from off several US Navy ships caused the legal brothels of Perth, Australia to close from over-work.

" ... came all the way from Iceland." Took me a few seconds.

I can just imagine the Navy moms and wives' reaction to that report, living in the shadow of the Naval Shipyard and down the road from the submarine base.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Recall that Kipling coined the phrase "...Single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints."

A couple of war-time movies that address this in a round about way:

The opening scene in the 1943 patriotic musical and everybody-on-the-lot Paramount satire, Star Spangled Rhythm, has a trio of overly-made up young women waiting at the landing pier at San Pedro or Long Beach for the first boatload of sailors on liberty from the fleet anchored out to arrive. Dialogue: Brunette - "I hear they came all the way from Iceland." Blonde - "All the way from Iceland? That counts me out. I bruise too easy." And Betty Hutton sings a song later about how she's "Doing it for defense."

Similarly the 1944 Preston Sturges comedy The Miracle of Morgan's Creek has Trudy Cockenlocker waking up married and pregnant after an all-night send-off party for the troops. Only she can't remember which one it was...

Another great example of this genre came just after the war, in the Howard Rome/Arnold Auerbach Broadway revue "Call Me Mister," with Betty Garrett as a camp follower whose services are no longer required:

"Hey you in the Pentagon!
All the men you sent me are gone!
So what's to become of
Little
Surplus
Me?"

 

[Zombie_61]

As long as we're on a New England theme, what might we rhyme with "Nantucket"?

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who put all his clams in a bucket.
But one was so large
That it needed a barge,
And he was unable to shuck it.

 

[vitanola]

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who put all his clams in a bucket.
But one was so large
That it needed a barge,
And he was unable to shuck it.

A charming young maiden of Brewster
Has learned how to crow like a Rooster
This gift made her get work on a national network
And THE MAJOR himself introduced her!

 

[Zombie_61]

While not a "term", I think we've stumbled onto a form of humorous entertainment that has all but disappeared - limericks. Except for someone occasionally reciting the first line of one in a manner that suggested what followed would not be suitable for "polite" company, I can't remember the last time I heard a limerick...until this thread, that is.

 

[vitanola]

A vaporish young maiden of Harrison
Did long for the love of a Saracen
But she had to confine her intent to a Shriner
Who suffers, I fear, by comparison

 

[Upgrade]

It’s possibly a New England thing.

I recall John Irving writing that Exeter was a very popular subject for a limerick.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Possibly the first thing I ever wrote for publication was a limerick, in our second-grade class magazine. I don't remember how it went, but it had something to do with a pig falling in love with a cow, and I remember I got in trouble for it. I blame my grandfather.

 

[skydog757]

I haven't heard anyone called "Slats" since I was a kid. Generally used for tall skinny guys.

 

[3fingers]

I haven't heard anyone called "Slats" since I was a kid. Generally used for tall skinny guys.

The last time I remember hearing the name was in Mike Royko's columns, who I still miss reading. Slats Grobnik was a recurring character that Mike would converse with over a beer. If you aren't familiar with Mike it's worth the trouble to dig up his work.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

My father called my brother "a pistol" when he was very young (late '50s). I can't recall hearing that any time recently.
(By the way, he certainly was a pistol.)

 

[3fingers]

I thought of one today that may be a regional thing. Hells katoot was a common exclamation among my grandparents generation. It bled over into the following generation, but seems to have faded away since. I have used it myself even though I don't have any idea what a katoot is or why hell would have their very own version.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In our neighborhood a hot-tempered, rambunctious person -- especially a child -- was called "a tartar." "That Gary Cook came over here, ripped all the sheets off the clothesline, knocked over the fence, and screamed like a monkey! What a little tartar!"

 

[3fingers]

In our neighborhood a hot-tempered, rambunctious person -- especially a child -- was called "a tartar." "That Gary Cook came over here, ripped all the sheets off the clothesline, knocked over the fence, and screamed like a monkey! What a little tartar!"

A common one here was little twerp.
Here's a few more.
http://dare.wisc.edu/survey-results/1965-1970/family-relationships/z16

 

[skydog757]

I thought of one today that may be a regional thing. Hells katoot was a common exclamation among my grandparents generation. It bled over into the following generation, but seems to have faded away since. I have used it myself even though I don't have any idea what a katoot is or why hell would have their very own version.

For some reason, this reminds me of the phrase "The Devil take the last of them". I always took that to mean that you should be about your business and not procrastinate.

Also, I remember the exclamation "Holy Katoots!" and, like yourself, I have no idea what it was supposed to mean.

 

[tonyb]

A common one here was little twerp.
Here's a few more.
http://dare.wisc.edu/survey-results/1965-1970/family-relationships/z16

"Twerp" is usually used among those of my acquaintance to mean something like a snooty little smartass who affects a superior air. Think Milo Yiannopoulos. Practically the dictionary definition.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A third-echelon radio comedian in the 1930s went by the name "Joe Twerp." It was even the name on his AFRA card, and he claimed it was his genuine birth name. Some, given the popular meaning of the word at the time, were skeptical, and assiduous research eventually revealed that he served in the Armed Forces under the name "Escott Brandon Boyes." Which is just as well, you'd have to think "Private Twerp" would have come in for more than his fair share of boot camp hazing.

He wasn't all that hot of a comedian -- he stole his entire "scrambled speech" routine from Roy Atwell, who was a second-echelon comedian with at least the consolation of working under a dignified name.