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Terms Which Have Disappeared

Stanley Doble

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,808
Location
Cobourg
Are you saying you would refuse to associate with them unless you were paid.

Someone asked Fred Allen "what's an Associate Producer?" He replied "That's anybody who will associate with a producer".
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
When I am a guest somewhere, I don't expect to pay for the hospitality proffered. When I am a customer, I expect to pay for the service, and I expect the service or product or both to be satisfactory. If I were a guest, and the meal wasn't satisfactory, it would be a faux pas to complain. If I am a customer, and the goods or services were unsatisfactory, pointing this out to the vendor and his staff (in a polite, direct, and unambiguous manner) gives them an opportunity to improve.

Couldn't agree with you more. That last sentence in particular strikes a chord. I once had a job that had me fielding customer complaints. I soon learned that there is just no pleasing some people (whatever their actual problems might have been had little if anything to do with me and my employers), but I came to appreciate most people who took the time to gripe. Even in those cases when I felt they had made their own contributions to whatever difficulties they may have had with our service, most of those folks were giving us the chance to keep them as customers. People were always free to take their money elsewhere. With rare exception, I much preferred they not do that.
 
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Alice Blue

One of the Regulars
Messages
153
Location
Western Massachusetts
I just stumped the employees of a local fabric store by asking for "button cord." Apparently the usual term is "button thread," but I'm 99% sure that my grandmother called it "cord." Now I'm wondering if my brains are scrambled since Google isn't turning anything up.

The shop clerk told me that her grandmother used to say "in the forenoon."
 

Stanley Doble

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,808
Location
Cobourg
My grandmother told me slang was ill bred and there were two words she never wanted to hear me say. One of them was swell and the other one was lousy. But she never told me what they were.
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
Nahhh. Having witnessed their actions, I believe I can safely say at least half of them wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the police. lol

Well, at least they were that smart, right? Although if it were apparent to the neighbors that they were up to various illegalities, well, they weren't as discreet as a truly smart criminal would be.
 
Messages
12,005
Location
Southern California
Well, at least they were that smart, right? Although if it were apparent to the neighbors that they were up to various illegalities, well, they weren't as discreet as a truly smart criminal would be.
In my experience the words "smart" and "criminal" don't often belong in the same sentence. lol
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
In my experience the words "smart" and "criminal" don't often belong in the same sentence. lol

Part of what makes a smart criminal smart is that most people wouldn't think he or she was a criminal, leastwise not at first glance. It's the people given to posing, to swagger, to conspicuous display of their ill-gotten proceeds, who go to prison, usually sooner rather than later. These are the more common sort, of course.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Part of what makes a smart criminal smart is that most people wouldn't think he or she was a criminal, leastwise not at first glance. It's the people given to posing, to swagger, to conspicuous display of their ill-gotten proceeds, who go to prison, usually sooner rather than later. These are the more common sort, of course.

Whitewashed tombs, filled with dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Now there's a term which has disappeared.
 

F. J.

One of the Regulars
Messages
221
Location
The Magnolia State
Matt. 23:27

Whitewashed tombs, filled with dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Now there's a term which has disappeared.


“Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye are like unto whited sepulchres,
which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men’s bones,
and of all uncleanness.”

—St. Matthew XXIII. 27.​

Jesus kinda liked to tell it as it is, doncha think?
 

Dan Allen

A-List Customer
Messages
395
Location
Oklahoma
It seems to me as though the terms "sir" and "ma'am" are fast Disappearing, at least around here. Almost daily I am addressed by a lady at a cash register as "honey" or "sweety". I find this very annoying. Just this morning while paying for gas, I was addressed by the lady cashier as "baby doll". I informed her that it was both unprofessional and infers a familiarity that does not exist, sir would be fine. She just shoved the change into my hand without saying a word and turned and looked out the window with her arms folded .... no doubt to look at the space ship she figured I was fueling.
 
Messages
13,669
Location
down south
I hear that so often down here that I guess I'm just used to it. Don't even give it much thought. As a matter of fact, if I were to, say, dine in a BBQ restaurant or maybe a meat and three, or some such place where the iced tea is sweet enough to pour over pancakes, and the waitress did NOT call me Hon or Sugar, I would take the omission as a black mark against the establishment.

On the opposite side of the coin, I once had a woman politely but firmly ask that I not call her Ma'am, as that was short for Madame, and that was another name for a woman who ran an establishment of questionable virtue, which she herself most certainly was not. I guess it takes all kinds.
 
I hear that so often down here that I guess I'm just used to it. Don't even give it much thought. As a matter of fact, if I were to, say, dine in a BBQ restaurant or maybe a meat and three, or some such place where the iced tea is sweet enough to pour over pancakes, and the waitress did NOT call me Hon or Sugar, I would take the omission as a black mark against the establishment.

On the opposite side of the coin, I once had a woman politely but firmly ask that I not call her Ma'am, as that was short for Madame, and that was another name for a woman who ran an establishment of questionable virtue, which she herself most certainly was not. I guess it takes all kinds.

Yeah, I LIKE being addressed as "Hon" or "Sugar". That implied familiarity is one of the South's charms.
 

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