Terms Which Have Disappeared

[HudsonHawk]

I've never heard "The Fathers" before -- what's the derivation?

"Fathers" = Padres. "Padre" is just Spanish for "father".

 

[HudsonHawk]

That p.o.s. has demonstrated about the lowest standards possible. He makes Archie Bunker look like Mother Teresa.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

I guess I'm completely out of the loop. I have no clue who that person in the picture is.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Martin Shkreli, the man who puts the scum in scumbag.

 

[GHT]

But, then I also actually write out thank you notes and mail them to people rather than using the much more impersonal email.

Always, but always, do this if you have a complaint with a purchase of goods or services. So used to e-mail are corporate staff these days that a snail mail letter is actually seen as a trophy. But, trophy or not, it will illicit a response. Remember though, if you do send a hand written reply, make sure that you keep an exact copy, or you might wind up with egg on your face when the recipient of your letter quotes you, and you can't respond because you couldn't remember what it was that you had written.

Have you ever actually watched an episode of I Love Lucy from the 50s?

Sometimes I wonder if the gene that makes you like sit-com & soaps, perhaps leaked out, before the moment of my conception. Whether it was Lucy in the 50's & 60's through to Friends in the 90's & 2000's, I have never, ever, been able to find them either funny, or enjoyable.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Latest word is Shkreli has gone completely nuts. Tweeting to his fans, things like '**** da fbi you know they cant touch a god like meh'.

I always knew he was a shmuck this is taking stupid to a whole new level.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...tter-was-hacked-or-he-has-gone-totally-insane

Lizzie I am sure you will enjoy watching his downfall. Salt won't save him now as grandma used to say.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Speaking of dress codes has anyone else noticed how doctors have gone down the scale? When I was a kid 50 years ago they dressed like professional men in suits, ties and white shirt. In the office they might exchange the suit jacket for a white coat.

Around 1980 they started dressing like they were going out for a round of golf. By the 90s they looked like they were going out to rake the leaves. Most of them today, I wouldn't hire to rake the leaves.

They used to inspire confidence because they looked like they knew what they were talking about. I am sure a lot of people felt better by the placebo effect, or being reassured by someone they trusted.

 

[Fading Fast]

Speaking of dress codes has anyone else noticed how doctors have gone down the scale? When I was a kid 50 years ago they dressed like professional men in suits, ties and white shirt. In the office they might exchange the suit jacket for a white coat.

Around 1980 they started dressing like they were going out for a round of golf. By the 90s they looked like they were going out to rake the leaves. Most of them today, I wouldn't hire to rake the leaves.

They used to inspire confidence because they looked like they knew what they were talking about. I am sure a lot of people felt better by the placebo effect, or being reassured by someone they trusted.

The dressing-nicely-to-show-respect-reflect-professionalism-etc. ship has all but sailed and the Millenials are blowing the biggest wind )) to push it out. I thought it made sense to have dress reflect respect for yourself, for others, for the situation (suits and ties at weddings and funerals), for positions (mailmen/women at least in NYC, still wear uniforms, but often disheveled, unbuttoned, etc. - I thought their uniforms - when smart and maintained - highlighted the importance of their work), but clearly the dress-how-you-want ethos has won the day for now.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Martin Shkreli, the man who puts the scum in scumbag.

I still had to Google him. I gotta get out more.

 

[tonyb]

I have yet to hear a Martin Shkreli joke.

I'm all ears.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Q: How many Martin Shkrelis does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Who cares? Hang the little SOB.

 

[scottyrocks]

Have you ever actually watched an episode of I Love Lucy from the 50s?

Sure I have.

Although many of the situations,and the star's reactions to them, were ridiculous, it was light-hearted fun that didn't, as far as I have been able to tell from talking to my parents and other people of an older generation, contribute significantly to the world's problems.

As much as shows like AITF, and its subsequent off-spring in that socially-relevant comedy-type show, addressed social issues as prior shows, for the most part, did not, they also brought to light a certain fondness for this type of bedraggled common folk, making them heroes (not so bad), and emulatable (not so good), leading to a general decline in behavior.

There were good lessons to be learned from many of these shows, but, unfortunately went over the head of some of the viewership who only saw surface behaviors, thinking them as desirable and replicable.

 

[scottyrocks]

As far as slapstick comedy was concerned, Lucy didn't do anything that Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly hadn't already done to death in the thirties.

The fifties sitcom that really glorified idiocy was "My Little Margie." I dare anyone to watch even half an episode and not roll their eyes so far back into their heads that they'll have to go straight to an opthalmologist. It made "My Friend Irma" look like Shakespeare.

In 1961 Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, speaking before a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, laid down a famous challenge:

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Again, this was 1961 -- Boomer-era television at flood tide.

And how did the nation's broadcasters and producers respond to this speech?

They made "Gilligan's Island."

I love reading this type of stuff in hindsight. By today's standards, TV in 1961 was all 'My Little Margie-ville.' To see how we got from there to here, you have to look at the progression from year to year, and era to era. It didn't all happen in one big ga-poof.

 

[scottyrocks]

Latest word is Shkreli has gone completely nuts. Tweeting to his fans, things like '**** da fbi you know they cant touch a god like meh'.

I always knew he was a shmuck this is taking stupid to a whole new level.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...tter-was-hacked-or-he-has-gone-totally-insane

Lizzie I am sure you will enjoy watching his downfall. Salt won't save him now as grandma used to say.

I can still say I don't even know why this yamaluke has become famous enough to be discussed by anyone outside of his parents' house. It seems, though, he'd fit right into the Miley Cyrus school of tact and respectability.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I love reading this type of stuff in hindsight. By today's standards, TV in 1961 was all 'My Little Margie-ville.' To see how we got from there to here, you have to look at the progression from year to year, and era to era. It didn't all happen in one big ga-poof.

To be fair, there was some pretty decent television in 1961 -- the Twilight Zone was at its peak, "Naked City" and "The Defenders" were doing serious, socially-conscious drama, and "Dobie Gillis" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" were offering comedy that intelligent adults could enjoy without feeling like someone was force-feeding them corn syrup from a gallon jug. Minow himself acknowledged that there were a few things worth watching even from his perspective -- but that didn't change the fact that most of it was ground-out Boys From Marketing slop.

I always enjoyed "Dick Van Dyke" as a kid, but I never was able to *relate* to it -- who did I know who lived in New Rochelle and wrote for a famous TV comedian? The Petries might as well have lived on Neptune for all the similarity they had to anything that I could recognize. The only person I wanted to emulate on that show was Rose Marie, who I liked because she was sarcastic and mouthy.

"Dobie Gillis," which I caught in reruns, I absolutely loved -- because the Gillises were a lot more like us than most TV families. When Dobie's dad mumbled "I gotta kill that boy, I just gotta," he was paraphrasing one of my mother's favorite lines.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speaking of dress codes has anyone else noticed how doctors have gone down the scale? When I was a kid 50 years ago they dressed like professional men in suits, ties and white shirt. In the office they might exchange the suit jacket for a white coat.

Ties have fallen out of favor in the modern hospital because they're considered germ carriers. I know our old family doctor when I was a kid often had traces of his breakfast spotting his tie.

Be that as it may, my own doctor today always wears a tie with his white coat. It's usually a villainously ugly tie, but a tie nonetheless.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Latest word on Shkreli's Twitter account is that someone hacked it and tried to make him look bad. Talk about coals to Newcastle.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

The last job I had was in 1991 before my child was born and I became a stay-at-home mom. Human Resources didn't exist in those days, but obviously they are now the PC police in companies. I'm thankful that I'm no longer in the business world because I wouldn't play well with the HR department. Middle-age has made me intolerant of stupidity and left me with the inability not to point it out when I encounter it. And to think when I was a very young child I was so shy that I'd hide behind my dad to avoid talking to people. Not anymore.

 

[Zombie_61]

Latest word on Shkreli's Twitter account is that someone hacked it and tried to make him look bad. Talk about coals to Newcastle.

Right. In other news, the moon has exploded and meteorologists are expecting it to start raining cheese any minute now.

 

[Fading Fast]

...I always enjoyed "Dick Van Dyke" as a kid, but I never was able to *relate* to it -- who did I know who lived in New Rochelle and wrote for a famous TV comedian? The Petries might as well have lived on Neptune for all the similarity they had to anything that I could recognize. The only person I wanted to emulate on that show was Rose Marie, who I liked because she was sarcastic and mouthy....

I remember enjoying "The Dick Van Dyke" show as a kid while having no idea where "their world" was, but it didn't matter. I got that they lived in a really nice house and he had a good job (but was alway scared of loosing it or incurring the wrath of his boss) - so I just kinda went with it.

Most TV shows were like that for me - I didn't live in Mayberry RFD, didn't know any black families that ran a junk yard like the Sanfords and nothing in my world was similar to the Brady Bunch (my parents never thought as much about how I felt emotionally during my entire childhood as Mike and Carol did about their kids in one episode). But none of that mattered. My mind half knew TV was fake and half just figured it's a big country, these "worlds" must be or have been out there somewhere at sometime.

The first show that seemed to come close to my world was "The Wonder Years," and it was funny to see characters, houses and events that reflected things I had experienced as a kid. Then as I moved through being a teenager into adulthood, I learn that all these "worlds" (or real versions of the TV-inspired ones) I grew up watching did exist in some form or another at some time (even if insanely sanitized - sometimes - for TV). As we didn't travel, take trips, etc., when I was a kid, TV's distorted view of the world did bring the world to me in some manner. Just like old movies brought the past to me in some manner.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The last job I had was in 1991 before my child was born and I became a stay-at-home mom. Human Resources didn't exist in those days, but obviously they are now the PC police in companies. I'm thankful that I'm no longer in the business world because I wouldn't play well with the HR department. Middle-age has made me intolerant of stupidity and left me with the inability not to point it out when I encounter it. And to think when I was a very young child I was so shy that I'd hide behind my dad to avoid talking to people. Not anymore.

They've certainly had HR departments since I've been working starting in the early 80s. And I'm not sure why you're so upset about the company not using pejorative terms to describe their employees, or why you'd be so eager to do so.