Terms Which Have Disappeared

[BlueTrain]

I use quotes from movies all the time, chiefly because I'm not all that clever and so many of them are useful.

I love trivia, too, and for my 40th birthday--or was it my 50th--the people in the office where I was working at the time gave me a book of trivia. It was a delightful gift, although I've scarcely memorized a tenth of the book. However, it's difficult to find the answer to a trivia question (such as the neon sign outside Sam Spade's window) without knowing the answer. It is very 1940s heavy, with lots of stuff about comics and movies from those years.

 

[BlueTrain]

Came across a term today while reading a short story from the 1930s that you most certainly don't hear anymore: a black female was referred to as a Negress.

That term, Negress, was used in one of the Whole Earth Catalogues, although I will admit that was, oh, twenty years ago.

 

[Zombie_61]

I use quotes from movies all the time, chiefly because I'm not all that clever and so many of them are useful...

A good friend and I quote movies so often that we're convinced foreign spies would think we were speaking in code if they ever eavesdropped on our conversations.

 

[BlueTrain]

Broadsword calling Danny Boy!

 

[Stormy]

Terms for food items are disappearing. I haven't heard rudebager, Irish potato, hash, or sweet milk since the 70's.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ It's funny, up to about six or seven years ago, I would have agreed with you that hash was disappearing, but then, at least in NYC, hash seems to have had a momentary renaissance probably related to the Hipsters / Millennials and their putative quest for authentic this, that and the other thing.

All of a sudden, I started to read articles on "classic" or "original" corn-beef hash and about restaurants doing "modern takes" on classic hash. And proving that it had legs, even my local diner and pub - neither of which has a "hip," "cool" or "trendy" bone in their DNA - added a dish to the menu (although, the diner always had it, but it did feature it a bit more like posting it on the chalkboard, etc.).

 

[HudsonHawk]

Terms for food items are disappearing. I haven't heard rudebager, Irish potato, hash, or sweet milk since the 70's.

I eat rutabagas all the time. My dad loves them, and we had them at least once a week growing up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, the most "authentic" hash came out of a can.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I had rutabagas tonight for supper. I know not many people like them but you can still get them. One thing that surprises me is that kale made a comeback as something new and great. 50 years ago the only people who ate kale were old immigrants from northern Europe who grew it in the back yard.

 

[BlueTrain]

Do you suppose Spam will make a comeback? At one time it came in a can, not in your in-box.

And speaking of Europe, I understand that only recently has corn, meaning what we mean when we say corn (maize, Indian corn) been considered a fit food for humans in places like Germany. Or so I have read and I don't know how recently. But they don't eat American-style white bread (Wonder bread), not yet anyway. My father used to call ordinary sliced white bread "light bread," which it definitely was. And speaking of expressions, there's the "greatest thing since sliced bread."

When did you last see someone wearing "loud" clothing?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I enjoy Spam, without apology. Fry it up for breakfast on some cold winter morning. Bake it in the oven glazed with mustard and brown sugar for Easter or Thanksgiving. Good eatin'.

I don't, however, like the pull tab cans it comes in now. Bring back the key-wind open -- it was much easier to get the meat out unmangled.

 

[BlueTrain]

Fibber Magee found a bunch of keys when he cleaned out his hall closet and naturally, Molly wanted to know what they were all for. One was for the lock on the back gate where they used to live many years ago. His explanation for keeping it was just in case they moved back to the old house they had rented, he'd have the key to the back gate.

"Well, what's that key for, Magee?"

"Oh, why that one's for sardines."

 

[BlueTrain]

We had rhubarb growing in the corner of our large garden when I was a little boy, next to what used to be the chicken coop. They even kept a cow when they first moved to town, I believe, about 25 years before I was born. Anyhow, I thought it just came up wild since I never saw anyone plant it or eat it. That was long before I'd heard of Bebop-A-Rebop Rhubarb Pie and Frozen Rhubarb Pie Filling (available at fine stores everywhere).

I still pretty sure it just came up on its own.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Rhubarb also known as pie plant, was very popular in the 19th and early 20th century because it was the first fresh food you got in the spring. It is a perennial, and before the soil was fit to plant a garden the rhubarb would be big enough to pick and eat. Usually stewed with sugar or in a pie.

If you went the whole winter with no fresh fruit but an orange at Christmas some stewed rhubarb would be a welcome treat. It was thought to be a tonic and blood purifier as well. Rhubarb was grown for centuries as a medicinal herb.

In June when the strawberries were ripe you could make a strawberry rhubarb pie. Now that is a mighty fine pie.

 

[Zombie_61]

...And speaking of Europe, I understand that only recently has corn, meaning what we mean when we say corn (maize, Indian corn) been considered a fit food for humans in places like Germany. Or so I have read and I don't know how recently...

My father-in-law, who was born in 1913 and grew up in Italy, refused to eat corn to the day he died in 2003. "That's what we used to feed to the pigs."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I never knew anyone to actually plant rhubarb -- it just grew wild in our neighborhood. My grandmother had a patch of it and she'd yell at us for trampling it when we were playing in the yard.

 

[Bushman]

I never knew anyone to actually plant rhubarb -- it just grew wild in our neighborhood. My grandmother had a patch of it and she'd yell at us for trampling it when we were playing in the yard.

Same here. In fact, we have to rip it out of our rose garden, lest it choke out the roses.

 

[BlueTrain]

Does anyone still say gas-guzzler or road hog anymore? Or drive-in restaurant. I don't think of a McDonald's as a drive-in. A drive-in has car hops who bring your order out on a tray that hooks on your car window. What about speed trap? They still exist, sort of. I know of one place where there might be a police car lurking just over the rise in the road. There used to be a place where the traffic backed up and the police with wait there to check registrations and inspection stickers.

 

[Fading Fast]

Hook and Ladder to refer to a fire fighting unit or fire truck. It popped out of my mouth in conversation the other day and meant to post sooner - I haven't heard it used in a long time, but don't know if it really is fading or I'm not a good sample on this one?

 

[Bushman]

Hook and Ladder to refer to a fire fighting unit or fire truck. It popped out of my mouth in conversation the other day and meant to post sooner - I haven't heard it used in a long time, but don't know if it really is fading or I'm not a good sample on this one?

And I'm not a good example either, probably, because I still use the term to describe non-ladder truck firetrucks.