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Terms Which Have Disappeared

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17,190
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New York City
To needle someone as in to annoy by constantly throwing small criticisms their way.

I can here my dad's friend saying it to his wife - "stop needling me -" as it was a refrain of their relationship. It didn't mean anything - nor did her criticism - it, oddly, reflected a comfort or closeness to their relationship. But more broadly, it was a more common term back in the '50s and '60s based I whom I saw use it when I was growing up.
 

BlueTrain

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2,073
It is true that many things have their origins decades ago (but not light years). In fact, there was a television show, which aired decades ago, which featured the origins of some common technology in wide use today, like computers. I have a book on the subject but, well, you know, nobody reads books anymore.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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33,715
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"Wastrel" was once a very satisfying term to describe a parasitical young idler frittering away his inheritance on riotous living. Chicago department store heir Marshall Field III was a prototypical wastrel until he underwent psychoanalysis in the early 1930s and completely changed his point of view.
 

Bugguy

Practically Family
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570
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Nashville, TN
I don't recall what I was listening to, but my ears perked up when I heard mention of it only costing a "sawbuck". I'd rather have a sawbuck than a "fin".
 

BlueTrain

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2,073
Does anyone refer to "Orientals" these days? Asian is the term I hear all the time. Or the Orient? The mysterious Orient?
 
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17,190
Location
New York City
Does anyone refer to "Orientals" these days? Asian is the term I hear all the time. Or the Orient? The mysterious Orient?

You're right. That was a reasonably common term, I'm guessing, up until 20ish years ago. And based on movies and books, it was the dominate term in the '30s and '40s. Any idea why it evolved to Asian?
 

BlueTrain

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On second thought, use of the word "Oriental" may have disappeared around the same time people stopped being described as "swarthy."
 

Upgrade

One of the Regulars
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126
Location
California
Oriental is a bit outdated, but it's up in the air over whether it is racist. Celestials, Chinaman, and Jap also have fallen out of usage, some with more emotional baggage than others.

Of course, Asian has fewer syllables than Oriental.

In any case there was a bill passed last year that prohibited the use of Oriental, negro, Eskimo etc. in legislation in an effort to "modernize terms relating to minorities".

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4238/text
 

LizzieMaine

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"Asian" is currently considered to be more accurate. "Oriental" has been used to refer to everything from people of East Asian descent to people of middle-eastern descent, to Russians -- you'd sometimes see articles during WWII talking about "Stalin's wily Oriental mind," and things like that.

Not that "Asian" has any less potential to be confusing. The Nation of Islam was using "Asiatic" as far back as the 1930s to describe any non-white person, and I'd imagine that persons of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, or Vietnamese descent might be annoyed at being all lumped together by well-meaning white people, especially given the way that some of said white people tend to exoticize or -- ah -- fetishize persons of Asian descent.

"Celestial" is a word I always associate with bad pulp/comic book detective fiction, in which Dan Turner or Slam Bradley is always beating up a roomful of identical ball-headed pigtailed stereotypes. Even by the thirties it was not particularly respectable.
 

BlueTrain

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I think "exotic" still has some meaning. To me, it evokes something or someone who is interesting, mostly unfamiliar and has a captivating charm. It definitely evokes far away places, some not so unfamiliar, like Hawaii, other places less well known, like Sumatra. It might be Africa, it can certainly be the Far East or the South Seas. But it can't be Europe and it can't be cold, except for central Asia, like Nepal or Tibet. Added interest comes from Tiki bars run by ex-pat British or Americans.
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
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4,254
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Gopher Prairie, MI
Occidental, for the West, has always seemed a bit academic or, at least, not common as I've only come across it in academic books and a few other places, but Oriental, for Asia, was in common usage for decades.

Years ago, practically in another lifetime, I knew an old busybody on Orchard Street who was half Chinese and half Jewish. She was what you would call an Oriyente. She used to say that I was an occident waiting to happen...
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Not a term, but a gesture -- how long has it been since you saw someone express contempt toward an authority figure by thumbing their nose at them? In the Era, this was a very popular way of expressing a sentiment similar to "Up Yours" or "F. You" toward some dignitary you disrespected. The type of people today who go around with middle-finger stickers displayed on the rear of their pickup trucks would, in the 1930s, go around with a radiator ornament depicting a devil figure with a thumb raised to its nose.

devil-jpg.516709
 

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