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Terms Which Have Disappeared

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12,009
Location
East of Los Angeles
Some of the old ways to rudely tell somebody to be quiet are less common now, although I still hear them once in a while. Such as: "put a sock in it" "pipe down" "put a lid on it" or one of my favorites, "shut your yapper!" Harsh humor used to feature this kind of thing prominently back in the days of the Stooges and Looney Tunes. Nowadays, the rudeness is still there, but expressed differently.
And one of my personal favorites, "Shut 'yer pie hole!" That one is usually reserved for people who know I'm just crackin' wise.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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33,728
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
And to combine the "aw shut up" lines with the military lines, "yahhhh, tell it to the Marines!"

When I worked in the t-shirt factory, we had a unique phrase of our own. In screen printing, it's sometimes necessary to clear accumulated ink out of the screen by taking a print on a piece of scrap newsprint, a process called "taking a paper." Thus, when somebody's been talking too long and is making increasingly little sense, you tell them to "take a paper!"
 
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Messages
12,009
Location
East of Los Angeles
I first heard that one from DeNiro in "This Boy's Life." I heard the variation, "Shut your cake hole!" from Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves) on "Frasier."
"Cake hole" actually came into use first, and pre-dates "pie hole" by approximately four decades. I prefer the latter because it rolls off of my tongue easier and, to me, it just sounds funnier.
 

ChiTownScion

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,247
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
And to combine the "aw shut up" lines with the military lines, "yahhhh, tell it to the Marines!"

One theory on the origin of this one that I've read credits it to the Royal Navy of the day of ships of wood and men of iron. Marines couldn't climb rigging, reef a sail, or tie a bowline: they were essentially the enforcement muscle of naval law. In other words, tell the Marines because we tars aren't thick enough to fall for such bilge.
 

skydog757

A-List Customer
Messages
465
Location
Thumb Area, Michigan
I enjoy the phrase "Cake and pie" to describe something done easily ("Piece of cake." "Easy as pie.") As a man of limited baking skills, I find making them to be sometimes tricky to make; however eating them . . .
 

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many
Messages
1,068
Location
Hurricane Coast Florida
I was thinking about Gold Diggers of 1933 the other day. If you're a fan of Busby Berkely's over-the-top Depression-era musicals, you will certainly remember the gangbusters opening number "We're In The Money", but the one I'm thinking of comes along later and includes a word in the title that has disappeared, namely "petting" (Petting in the Park).

I first ran across the term in the mid 1960's when a text book we used in our weekly religious education class preparatory to confirmation described it as an activity to be avoided. As a 12 and 13-year-old boy, I knew a lot of words to describe, oh, shall we call them "social activities" between men and women. But that one was one I didn't know.

I expect the text hadn't been revised in twenty years, a time when "petting" would have been a contemporary word.
 
Messages
12,009
Location
East of Los Angeles
I was thinking about Gold Diggers of 1933 the other day. If you're a fan of Busby Berkely's over-the-top Depression-era musicals, you will certainly remember the gangbusters opening number "We're In The Money", but the one I'm thinking of comes along later and includes a word in the title that has disappeared, namely "petting" (Petting in the Park).

I first ran across the term in the mid 1960's when a text book we used in our weekly religious education class preparatory to confirmation described it as an activity to be avoided. As a 12 and 13-year-old boy, I knew a lot of words to describe, oh, shall we call them "social activities" between men and women. But that one was one I didn't know.

I expect the text hadn't been revised in twenty years, a time when "petting" would have been a contemporary word.
I've always found the term "petting" in this context to be too vague. Because of it's very different association with domesticated animals, whenever I've heard the term I envisioned a young couple kissing passionately while vigorously stroking each others' hair. lol
 
Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
You also don't here "keister" used much anymore, but I had an boss back in the early 80s (who was in his 60s then) who use to say "get off your keister and do some work" all the time.

Also, similar to petting, it seems that in the 20s - 50s (based on books and movies from that era) that "making love" meant what we today would call (1) promoting yourself to a women romantically (this seemed its meaning in the 20s-40s) and (2) kissing or making out (which seemed its meaning more in the 50s and early 60s). It's funny as today it mainly means to have sex, so you have these very wholesome 1930s movies where a mother will casually ask her daughter if the man she was out with "made love" to her - until you get used to the different meaning, it can be jarring.
 

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many
Messages
1,068
Location
Hurricane Coast Florida
I've always found the term "petting" in this context to be too vague. Because of it's very different association with domesticated animals, whenever I've heard the term I envisioned a young couple kissing passionately while vigorously stroking each others' hair. lol

The chorus of the song gives instructions:

"Pettin’ in the park, (bad boy!)
Pettin’ in the dark; (bad girl!)
First you pet a little,
Let up a little, and they you get a little kiss.
Pettin’ on the sly, (oh my!)
Act a little shy
: (Aw, why!)
Struggle just a little,
Then hug a little,
And cuddle up and whisper this:
“Come on, I’ve been waiting long,
Why don’t we get started?
Come on, maybe this is wrong,
But, gee, what of it?
We just love it.”
Pettin’ in the park, (bad boy!)
Pettin
’ in the dark; (bad girl!)
Whatcha doin’ honey?
I feel so funny,
I’m pettin’ in the park with you"
 

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