Terms Which Have Disappeared

[tonyb]

"If I Can't Sell It, I'll Keep Sittin' On It," which dates to 1936, is, of course, a song about an easy chair.

 

[BlueTrain]

Half the posts in this thread I've made are about expressions that are older than I thought. I don't know if there's a thread for that or not but here's another one.

This one came from a U.S. Army Manual dated 1907. In a chapter on combat on page 38, it says "Keep cool," among other things. I wonder how old that expression is?

 

[Fading Fast]

Half the posts in this thread I've made are about expressions that are older than I thought. I don't know if there's a thread for that or not but here's another one.

This one came from a U.S. Army Manual dated 1907. In a chapter on combat on page 38, it says "Keep cool," among other things. I wonder how old that expression is?

Almost everything - ideas, inventions, expressions (as you point out), technology, etc. - is older or has older antecedents than is usually thought. And as time moves forward, the origin date of things tends to move back even farther as an older "example" (book reference, video, radio tape, etc.) is "discovered" that pushes the "discovery" date deeper into history.

Separately, "cool" is the one expression that is, well, always cool. "Hip," "happening," "the cat's pajamas," "groovy," and more recently "the bomb" and many others all had their moment of being and meaning (something close to) "cool," but they faded. Somehow, "cool" is always in, always cool. Odd that it has such staying power.

 

[Upgrade]

There was an article in the New York Times from November 6, 1922 about a girl wearing pajamas and walking several cats on leashes down 5th Avenue.

Apparently both "cat's pajamas" and "publicity scheme" were nascent expressions.

Alas, the article is behind a paywall.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05E1DA1F39EF3ABC4E53DFB7678389639EDE&legacy=true

 

[LizzieMaine]

Almost everything - ideas, inventions, expressions (as you point out), technology, etc. - is older or has older antecedents than is usually thought. And as time moves forward, the origin date of things tends to move back even farther as an older "example" (book reference, video, radio tape, etc.) is "discovered" that pushes the "discovery" date deeper into history.

Separately, "cool" is the one expression that is, well, always cool. "Hip," "happening," "the cat's pajamas," "groovy," and more recently "the bomb" and many others all had their moment of being and meaning (something close to) "cool," but they faded. Somehow, "cool" is always in, always cool. Odd that it has such staying power.

"Keep Cool With Coolidge" was a campaign slogan in 1924. "Cool" in that sense simply meant be placid, tranquil, not agitated, and to maintain a steady, unemotional course.

Cool, baby.

 

[BlueTrain]

For Coolidge, that amounts to a broad smile. I don't think Presidents have to do that sort of thing anymore.

There was a book and television series, oh, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, entitled "Connections." I was about several modern technologies that owe their development to something that was invented ages ago. The best known one was about the IBM (Hollerith) card was one such thing that developed from something used in weaving. The book needs to be updated a little.

 

[ChrisB]

 

[Stearmen]

There was an article in the New York Times from November 6, 1922 about a girl wearing pajamas and walking several cats on leashes down 5th Avenue.

Apparently both "cat's pajamas" and "publicity scheme" were nascent expressions.

Alas, the article is behind a paywall.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05E1DA1F39EF3ABC4E53DFB7678389639EDE&legacy=true

Pursers and Matradee's on the Titanic complained about the young socialites and their yapping little dogs they carried in their purses! As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

[tonyb]

For Coolidge, that amounts to a broad smile. I don't think Presidents have to do that sort of thing anymore.

There was a book and television series, oh, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, entitled "Connections." I was about several modern technologies that owe their development to something that was invented ages ago. The best known one was about the IBM (Hollerith) card was one such thing that developed from something used in weaving. The book needs to be updated a little.

Yup. Jacquard's binary loom.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fats Waller's work is a delightful treasure trove of "slipping naughty stuff past the ofays." In his 1936 tune "Spring Cleaning," Fats departs from the actual lyric to throw in a fruity ad-lib -- "No lady, we can't haul yo' ashes fo' twenty-five cents, that's bad business!" "Hauling one's ashes" in this context had nothing to do with removing the waste products from your antrhacite furnace -- to get one's ashes hauled meant to receive a thoroughly vigorous sexual experience.

Two years later, in a romping big-band tune called "Come and Get It," Waller really pulls out all the stops when he declares "I don't want that turtle-dove-me stuff, I gotta get myself some booty!!" And yes, that meant then exactly, specifically, and graphically, what it means now.

 

[BlueTrain]

Ain't misbehaving!

And speaking of terms you don't hear anymore, when was the last time you heard the expression "four-eyes," other than in reference to a place to buy spectacles? When I was little, being referred to as a four-eyes was not exactly a compliment. But these days, so many people wear glasses that it has lost it's sting and nobody uses the term--I think!

 

[Fading Fast]

Fats Waller's work is a delightful treasure trove of "slipping naughty stuff past the ofays." In his 1936 tune "Spring Cleaning," Fats departs from the actual lyric to throw in a fruity ad-lib -- "No lady, we can't haul yo' ashes fo' twenty-five cents, that's bad business!" "Hauling one's ashes" in this context had nothing to do with removing the waste products from your antrhacite furnace -- to get one's ashes hauled meant to receive a thoroughly vigorous sexual experience.

Two years later, in a romping big-band tune called "Come and Get It," Waller really pulls out all the stops when he declares "I don't want that turtle-dove-me stuff, I gotta get myself some booty!!" And yes, that meant then exactly, specifically, and graphically, what it means now.

⇧ Everything almost always has an earlier-than-thought origin or antecedent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was routinely called "four eyes" and worse names growing up. Didn't faze me a bit.

In junior high I wrote a short story in which a character who affected a monocle was referred to as "Three Eyes."

 

[Fading Fast]

I was routinely called "four eyes" and worse names growing up. Didn't faze me a bit.

In junior high I wrote a short story in which a character who affected a monocle was referred to as "Three Eyes."

"Four eyes," was a common expression growing up in the late '60s / '70s that could range from friendly kidding or even friendly nickname to intent to be cruel - it was all context or tone for that one, at least in my neighborhood / school. That said, to your story, anyone wearing a monocle would have (and have to say, would have deserved to be) kidded pretty hard - that was way too fancy schmancy for my world. But witty for a kid to have used as a device in a story.

 

[BlueTrain]

I wore glasses but I don't recall being called four-eyes. I had other things that bothered me a lot more; I was skinny. I think there used to be more skinny kids than there used to be. It was even used as a nickname but usually in a good-natured way. But as a schoolboy, it was not something you wanted to be. I didn't really start gaining weight until after I got married.

One of my neighbors, same age as me, wore very thick glasses and so did his father. His father was telephone linesman and I would see him in breeches and boots sometimes. Although his son was actually very good natured, they did not look like the kind of person you would dare make fun of for wearing glasses or for any reason.

 

[Fading Fast]

I wore glasses but I don't recall being called four-eyes. I had other things that bothered me a lot more; I was skinny. I think there used to be more skinny kids than there used to be. It was even used as a nickname but usually in a good-natured way. But as a schoolboy, it was not something you wanted to be. I didn't really start gaining weight until after I got married.....

I have been skinny all 52 years of my life and, yes, have been teased in some fashion or another about it for all 52 of them. Most of the time it's reasonably good natured but sometimes intentionally hurtful - but whatever, getting teased is part of life. My super girlfriend - truly, a wonderful person - is not above firing out a "hey, be careful you don't blown away" as I'm walking out the door on a particularly windy day. Follow with, "if you wind up in Connecticut or something, let me know and I'll come get you." I'll toss out a "charming" or something similar as I close the door.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was a kid in my seventh grade class who willingly answered to "Fatso." Times were different.

 

[Fading Fast]

There was a kid in my seventh grade class who willingly answered to "Fatso." Times were different.

My dad had a group of the same friends from his depression-era childhood his entire life. Those guys were brutal - by today's standards, horrible political incorrect - to each other. The were mixed ethnically (another lie today, plenty of diversity in his group - but no question, some groups were excluded by the prejudices of the times) and had some pretty harsh nicknames and ways of addressing each other. That said, they were true lifelong friends who stuck together and help each other out through many of life's struggles - while making aggressive fun of their different ethnicities, religions, weights, hairlines, heights, limps, you name it. As a kid, I processed it as harmless banter while seeing the real friendships - still see it that way today in retrospect.

 

[2jakes]

Grasshopper and giraffe were two
names I recall when I was a skinny kid.
Nevertheless, I'd go skinny-dipping down by the lake.

Besides the term, the act of swimming in my birthday suit in
public has dissappeared.
At least it has for me.
Same thing for the lake down the road which has been replaced by a
"cement pond".

 

[LizzieMaine]

My dad had a group of the same friends from his depression-era childhood his entire life. Those guys were brutal - by today's standards, horrible political incorrect - to each other. The were mixed ethnically (another lie today, plenty of diversity in his group - but no question, some groups were excluded by the prejudices of the times) and had some pretty harsh nicknames and ways of addressing each other. That said, they were true lifelong friends who stuck together and help each other out through many of life's struggles - while making aggressive fun of their different ethnicities, religions, weights, hairlines, heights, limps, you name it. As a kid, I processed it as harmless banter while seeing the real friendships - still see it that way today in retrospect.

Fatso's brother was "Boogie," not so called because he had smooth moves on the dance floor, but because his nose was always running. There were many colorful characters in my school.