Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Fading Fast]

Jewess and negress have also fallen out of favor though they pop up in Doyle and Dickens.

The first time I remember hearing the term Jewess was in a Herman Wouk many decades ago. And, to your point, not one you hear today at all.

 

[ChrisB]

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.

The modern equivalent would be Calvin hosing down some object of contempt.

 

[BlueTrain]

A book I received for my birthday is an autobiography of a man's father who went to Alaska as a mining engineer. The book includes many extracts from his father's diary, including when he was a student at the University of Arizona between around 1901 to 1906. He was a prankster and given to using a lot of slang in his diary. One expression was "fan me with a brick!" Somehow it doesn't seem that old-fashioned but it does sound like an expression that would be circulating around college campuses.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Fan mah brow!" as an expression of astonishment was still current high school slang in the early thirties if "Harold Teen" is to be believed.

 

[Fading Fast]

Once again, a term that popped into my head when writing in another post: "on a dime" as in "stop on a dime" or "turn on a dime."

I've always known the expression to mean to do something quickly in a small space or area. One rarely hears it anymore - but it does still show up occasionally.

 

[vitanola]

It has been a long while since I have heard anyone refer to Stoopnocracy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"People have more fun than anyone!" -- Colonel L. Q. Stoopnagle.

 

[Haversack]

A couple of terms related to the Asia-Orient question that appear to have fallen by the wayside are, 'The Far East', and 'The Near East'. ('The Middle East' still being on active duty.) Here in the US, 'Far East' has largely been supplanted by 'Asia' in meaning. 'Near East', which referred to the European possessions of the Ottoman Empire, i.e. the Balkans, pretty much disappeared during the Cold War. Related to the latter concept is the quote ascribed to Metternich: "Asian beignet auf der Landstrasse" - "Asia begins on the highway heading east from Vienna".

 

[BlueTrain]

"Fan mah brow!" as an expression of astonishment was still current high school slang in the early thirties if "Harold Teen" is to be believed.

Okay, then, riddle me this: When did the term "teen" or "teenager" come into use? Inasmuch as it was common for people to get regular jobs when they were quite young, the "teenage years" had no meaning, as in, you weren't a child and you weren't an adult. That may have been something that was very much class defined. It may not have been required to attend high school, for instance. The college years would have been something else, as few attended college. But you would still have been in your teens for the first year or two.

 

[scottyrocks]

The first time I remember hearing the term Jewess was in a Herman Wouk many decades ago. And, to your point, not one you hear today at all.

Gilda Radner used that term in some SNL skits in the '70s. I don't think I've heard it since.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Okay, then, riddle me this: When did the term "teen" or "teenager" come into use? Inasmuch as it was common for people to get regular jobs when they were quite young, the "teenage years" had no meaning, as in, you weren't a child and you weren't an adult. That may have been something that was very much class defined. It may not have been required to attend high school, for instance. The college years would have been something else, as few attended college. But you would still have been in your teens for the first year or two.

People were talking about "teen-age" culture in the late 1910s -- Booth Tarkington's comic novel "Seventeen," published in 1916, is generally considered the first 20th Century work to deal with the trials and tribulations of adolescence as a distinctive millieu, and Tarkington's feckless hero Willie Baxter is the direct ancestor of Harold Teen, Henry Aldrich, Archie Andrews, and all other "teen humor" characters that would follow.

"Harold Teen," the comic strip, was intended to capitalize on the interest generated by that book, and first appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 1919. It remains the most reliable chronicle of middle-class teen-age slang during the 1920s and 1930s, as cartoonist Carl Ed made regular excursions into high schools to listen in on what the kids were saying.

Teen antics were also the focus of "The Boy Friends," a two-reel comedy series produced at the Hal Roach Studios for MGM release from 1930 to 1932. This was largely created as a vehicle for "Our Gang" kids who had outgrown their roles, and starred 1920s gang mainstays Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman as the leads. It was the first "teen sitcom" of the talkie era, preceding the more familiar Andy Hardy series of features by several years.

By the late thirties, when Clifford Goldsmith created Henry Aldrich for the Broadway play "What A Life," all the stereotypes of "teen-age" humor were fully in place -- the clumsy, self-conscious but always well-meaning teen boy, his goofy sidekick, his annoying younger siblings, his intimidating rival, and his various fickle girlfriends. Anyone who ever read an Archie comic recognizes the template.

Girl-centered teen humor took longer, but it became a national fad during the latter years of WWII. The Broadway play "Junior Miss" was in the vanguard of this, followed on radio by "Meet Corliss Archer" and dozens of extremely derivative comic-book characters with names like "Candy," "Millie," and "Patsy." In all cases, these girls were breathless, energetic, boy-crazy bobby-soxer types.

All these characters were extremely middle-class -- their families lived in single-family houses, not tenements or walkups, and the dads were usually respectable pillar-of-the-community types. There wasn't a genuinely working-class-based teen humor series in any medium until "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1959. The Aldrich Family would never have deigned to speak with the Gillises, who scratched out a living with a one-counter neighborhood grocery store, and lived in a cramped apartment above it.

"Teen-age" was spelled with a hyphen well into the 1940s, but there wasn't an American who wasn't aware of all the teen stereotypes by the end of WWII.

 

[BlueTrain]

As always, that was a good summary. I especially appreciate you comment about extremely middle-class.

There were lots of books, either adventure or mystery, aimed at adolescent boy or girls (one or the other but probably not both). The leading characters in them were always teenagers, although I don't think the word was ever used. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were easily the best known and they continue today. Others included Tom Swift, Jr., and the Radio Boys. Something I never really noticed when I was reading them as a child was that they were all from well-to-do families. They lived in nice neighborhoods, usually had cars, boats or motorcycles. They traveled a lot and didn't seem to spend much time with school or schoolwork (the boiler at school was always breaking down or something). They may have had a girlfriend or boyfriend but didn't seem to spend much time with them, either. Nancy Drew's boyfriend was more of a sidekick. Overall, they were more affluent and had more interesting lives than anyone I ever knew. And they didn't do teenage things.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Okay, then, riddle me this: When did the term "teen" or "teenager" come into use? Inasmuch as it was common for people to get regular jobs when they were quite young, the "teenage years" had no meaning, as in, you weren't a child and you weren't an adult. That may have been something that was very much class defined. It may not have been required to attend high school, for instance. The college years would have been something else, as few attended college. But you would still have been in your teens for the first year or two.

In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (not sure which one or the date), a servant girl is described as " teen-aged." This is probably the earliest use of the term of which I am aware.

 

[Bushman]

"Xerox" as in to go use the copier. Haven't heard "Go make me a Xerox" in a looong time. The word Xerox used to be synonymous with copying like Kleenex is to tissue.

 

[tonyb]

Once again, a term that popped into my head when writing in another post: "on a dime" as in "stop on a dime" or "turn on a dime."

I've always known the expression to mean to do something quickly in a small space or area. One rarely hears it anymore - but it does still show up occasionally.

A former new-door neighbor, a retired fellow who hailed from Shreveport, once commented on something being "pretty as new money."

I liked that phrase, and I've borrowed it a few times since. Honest-to-goodness cash folding money is still used with sufficient frequency for that phrase to make sense to the average person. But in a decade or three? We'll see. Or some of us will, anyway.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

'Till the cows come home.

 

[BlueTrain]

Well, then, how about money that hasn't been folded yet?

 

[Fading Fast]

A former new-door neighbor, a retired fellow who hailed from Shreveport, once commented on something being "pretty as new money."

I liked that phrase, and I've borrowed it a few times since. Honest-to-goodness cash folding money is still used with sufficient frequency for that phrase to make sense to the average person. But in a decade or three? We'll see. Or some of us will, anyway.

Not one I had ever heard, but as you said, makes intuitive sense.

My dad (and many of his era) used to say - to describe something of value / that was the best in class / that was money good / etc. as - "it's as good as a certified check."

 

[ChiTownScion]

'Till the cows come home.

".... where God lost his galoshes."

 

[HudsonHawk]

A former new-door neighbor, a retired fellow who hailed from Shreveport, once commented on something being "pretty as new money."

I liked that phrase, and I've borrowed it a few times since. Honest-to-goodness cash folding money is still used with sufficient frequency for that phrase to make sense to the average person. But in a decade or three? We'll see. Or some of us will, anyway.

I distinctly remember older relatives referring to paper currency as "folding money", as opposed to coinage. If you "give" or "bet" foldin' money, it represents a tidy sum.

My dad talks about people referring to cash as "big money", but I don't personally remember hearing that term.