Terms Which Have Disappeared

[St. Louis]

... and I am unanimous in that.

 

[scottyrocks]

Our local PBS station carries them, along with Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By. They used to broadcast Fawlty Towers and The Vicar of Dibley as well, which are also great shows.

Thank you for reminding me. It's not a random cable channel. It's our local PBS.

 

[Upgrade]

At lunch today with my parents I had to break out my pocket knife as the one provided to me was as dull as dishwater. I actually said this out loud.

I’ve only ever heard it applied to something that is boring or unexciting.

For a keen edge, there’s sharp as a butter knife.

 

[scottyrocks]

For someone who is not too swift, the Foghorn-Leghornism, 'That boy's about as sharp as a bowling ball.'

 

[Fading Fast]

Saw part of "The Front Page," a movie from 1931, the other day and it seemed that the expression "he's a Lizzy" was used to say someone is a gay man.

I could be wrong, but it really seemed that way. My short internet search didn't turn anything up, so I thought I'd ask this group if anyone is familiar with that expression and if it means what it appeared to mean in the movie?

Regardless, as an expression, it seems to have disappeared.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That seems to be a variation on the much more common use of "Nellie" to mean the same thing. Obviously I discourage the use of the "Lizzy" version.

 

[Upgrade]

Nancy is also apparently used.

Nathan Lane did a production of The Nance on PBS for Live from Lincoln Center.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was a whole genre of "nance comedy" in the movies of the Era. Such actors as Johnny Arthur, Grady Sutton, and Franklin Pangborn were its foremost practitioners.

 

[3fingers]

In my world of working with tradesmen Sally is used as an insult to someone's masculinity. If somebody is struggling to accomplish a task somebody else will pipe up with "try hitting it with your purse Sally!"
Among younger people I'm told Sally is used as a way to describe what the speaker perceives as the perfect woman. Attractive, great personality, smart, etc.

 

[tonyb]

Nancy is also apparently used.

Nathan Lane did a production of The Nance on PBS for Live from Lincoln Center.

I've heard that, and the abbreviated "Nance" in a few contexts over the years, but not recently. It's every bit as insulting to women as to the effeminate men at which it is directed. It's saying, essentially, that femininity renders a person weaker or less brave or determined.

I was raised under the roof of an alleged adult who thought it clever to refer to my brothers and me as "ma'am" whenever he thought us behaving in an unmasculine way. It never really bothered me, though. I just considered the source.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"I wouldn't give a slick nickel for that!"

You never see "slick" coins anymore -- coins so badly worn from circulation that the design is completely, or nearly completely rubbed away -- but in the Era they were commonly found in pocket change, given the fact that coins were commonly carried in pockets and given heavy daily use as opposed to being tossed in jars the way they are today. Getting a slick coin was not a desirable thing -- depending on how slick it was, you might not even be certain that it *was* a coin, and some merchants refused to accept them for fear of getting stuck. An item for which you wouldn't even give a slick nickel was something really cheap, worthless, or shoddy.

I have an actual slick nickel in my desk drawer -- it's been there since the desk belonged to my grandfather, who no doubt did not appreciate getting stuck with it. It's not as slick as it could be -- you can make out enough of the design to know that it was an 1899 Liberty Head type nickel -- but it's a lot slicker than anything you'll find in circulation today.

 

[Fading Fast]

"I wouldn't give a slick nickel for that!"

You never see "slick" coins anymore -- coins so badly worn from circulation that the design is completely, or nearly completely rubbed away -- but in the Era they were commonly found in pocket change, given the fact that coins were commonly carried in pockets and given heavy daily use as opposed to being tossed in jars the way they are today. Getting a slick coin was not a desirable thing -- depending on how slick it was, you might not even be certain that it *was* a coin, and some merchants refused to accept them for fear of getting stuck. An item for which you wouldn't even give a slick nickel was something really cheap, worthless, or shoddy.

I have an actual slick nickel in my desk drawer -- it's been there since the desk belonged to my grandfather, who no doubt did not appreciate getting stuck with it. It's not as slick as it could be -- you can make out enough of the design to know that it was an 1899 Liberty Head type nickel -- but it's a lot slicker than anything you'll find in circulation today.

A variation on the theme, personal change management is going away. Back in the '80s, when I used to commute, I needed a certain number of specific coins each day - exact change so that I could grab the newspapers (morning and night), drop the change and keep going and, also, the right combination of coins for the PATH train turnstile (in and out of the city). Also, the laundry machines in my apartment building needed certain coins (and the change machine was very unreliable). All told, I needed to have a lot of nickels, dimes and quarters available each week - it took some work.

Hence, I was constantly thinking about making sure I had the right combination of coins as I wanted the commute to move along, so when buying things, I would look for opportunities to get change. It was hardly overwhelming, but it was one of those things you were aware of as you moved through your day. Sounds silly, but if you didn't have the right change, things slowed down. And you had to remember to grab the right quantities of each coin before you left the house in the morning to commute.

Now, like many, we pay for almost everything on a card (we get, effectively, cash back that way, so why not) and have no real use for coins - so they just go in a drawer until they overwhelm and I take them to the bank. But there was a day when many people actively thought about their personal "change management."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Given the general trend of things, it's not impossible to imagine that within the lifetime of people now living, coinage itself -- a mark of human civilization since the concept of economics first evolved -- might disappear everywhere but in the US. It won't happen here though -- look at the rigor with which Americans cling to the penny, even though they have no practical use for it. The only thing that will happen is the designs of the coins will continue to grow uglier and more soulless.

 

[ChrisB]

Pennies are mainly used to avoid getting even more of them back in your change.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The modern zinc/copperplate penny might be the single ugliest coin ever produced in the US, even worse than the reprehensible beady-eyed Jefferson now featured on the nickel. They look and feel play-money cheap when they're new, and they degrade terribly when exposed to any amount of circulation -- they corrode, turn distasteful blotchy colors that make Lincoln look leprous, and get to where you feel squicked just handling them. Add to that the ham-handed redesign attempts of recent years -- the crude re-engraving of the Lincoln bust that makes his whiskers look like they were scribbled on by a kid with a pencil, the new Bank-Of-Woolworths reverse design -- and you have something that's not just not worth what it costs to produce it, but an active blight on the American scene. Blech.

 

[skydog757]

Given the general trend of things, it's not impossible to imagine that within the lifetime of people now living, coinage itself -- a mark of human civilization since the concept of economics first evolved -- might disappear everywhere but in the US. It won't happen here though -- look at the rigor with which Americans cling to the penny, even though they have no practical use for it. The only thing that will happen is the designs of the coins will continue to grow uglier and more soulless.

They probably all look beautiful to the US Mint; people "collect" them and take them out of circulation which is a profit for the Fed. "Since it costs the Mint about five cents for each 25-cent piece it produces, the government made a profit whenever someone 'bought' a coin" (Wikipedia quote). Which explains why the Mint is cranking out the State Quarters series, Presidential Dollars and innumerable variations on standard coins. I know a lot of people that are not coin collectors in the traditional sense but still made a point of getting an example each state coin which they placed in a display pack and eventually stuck in a drawer. Very few of these "limited" coins are particularly attractive, but I was happy to see the "Buffalo" nickle make a comeback. Now if they could bring back the Mercury dime . . .

 

[Fading Fast]

The modern zinc/copperplate penny might be the single ugliest coin ever produced in the US, even worse than the reprehensible beady-eyed Jefferson now featured on the nickel. They look and feel play-money cheap when they're new, and they degrade terribly when exposed to any amount of circulation -- they corrode, turn distasteful blotchy colors that make Lincoln look leprous, and get to where you feel squicked just handling them. Add to that the ham-handed redesign attempts of recent years -- the crude re-engraving of the Lincoln bust that makes his whiskers look like they were scribbled on by a kid with a pencil, the new Bank-Of-Woolworths reverse design -- and you have something that's not just not worth what it costs to produce it, but an active blight on the American scene. Blech.

So you do or you do not like the modern penny design?

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's even worse than what they did to the Washington head on the quarter -- some bright bulb at the Mint decided that what old G. W. needed was a snazzy new wig, so they had some hacky apprentice trace over his hair to define individual waves and strands with the result that The Father Etc. looks like somebody hit him in the head with a bowl of spaghetti. Probably Franklin, you couldn't turn your back on him for a second.

The original. Boring as dishwater, but at least it's dignified.

The Revision. Ridiculous and stupid.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Gov't or Corporate America, never underestimate the ability of a bureaucracy with too much time and too much money on its hands - and an "initiative" or "directive" to accomplish "something -" to mess up a good thing.

It took a lot of "brain" power and $1 million in outside consulting fees (I kid you not) to make "Bank of Boston," a venerable, stable name, into "BankBoston," a grammatically confused marketing gimmick.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's just really sad that an institution that infests the tills of today with coins that don't even look good next to Chucky Cheese money was once capable of this: