Terms Which Have Disappeared

[dh66]

Keep your cottonpicking hands off my beer!

That's what I'm talkin'bout.

 

[Hercule]

Gee wilikers

Heavens to Betsey (or Murgatroid if you're Snagglepus)

 

[Stearmen]

Gee wilikers

Heavens to Betsey (or Murgatroid if you're Snagglepus)

Dagnabbit, now you've opened a can of worms!

 

[Hercule]

Dagnabbit, now you've opened a can of worms!

Sufferin succotash, don't blame me! That started several posts back.

Speaking of succotash, my grandmother would make it, or what we knew as succotash, whenever corn was in season. We kids hated it of course because she put those damn throat choking lima beans in it! What I would give for some now!

 

[Stearmen]

Sufferin succotash, don't blame me! That started several posts back.

Speaking of succotash, my grandmother would make it, or what we knew as succotash, whenever corn was in season. We kids hated it of course because she put those damn throat choking lima beans in it! What I would give for some now!

 

[Dennis Young]

23 skidoo

23 80

 

[Mr Oldschool]

Skidoo's a watercraft now, I think...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Whenever the kids and I have to shift some heavy load of something at work, I signal them to start lifting by saying "alley oop!" After years of this one of them asked me why I say that, and I went into the whole explanation of how it was ba***rd French for "go up!" She looked at me like I had three heads.

She hadn't ever heard of the comic strip caveman, either.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I believe alley oop (the expression) came from the vaudeville stage. I seem to recall it used by acrobats. And that like a lot of broken French expressions it originated among the troops in WW1.

 

[Trapped in T-wilight Zone]

The comic strip "Alley Oop" apparently is still running in some papers around the country. I occasionally read it in a local rag (speaking of old expressions) while waiting for my order at a local diner. The references are current enough that I know they are not just old reruns.
I also often use the deleted expletive word "FAP" which was from the "Our Boarding House" comic strip. I rarely use the "D" word or other common curse words, and almost NEVER the "F" word. I much prefer cartoon references instead.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Be careful, FAP has acquired a new meaning since the 1930s.

 

[Davem123]

Whistling Dixie

In the movie of John Philip Sousa's life there is an episode where he plays in the South in the 1870s or 1880s, against the advice of his manager, right after another Northern band got run out of town.

He marches into the fairgrounds playing "Dixie". From the bandstand he announces the day's program. Every second number is " Dixie" and every time he says "Dixie" the crowd cheers.

From this, I took it that "Dixie" was a popular song in the South in those days.

So it seems by the 1900s "whistling Dixie" meant something everyone had heard, over and over.

I'm kind of late to the party on this one but I've always understood the term "You ain't just whistling Dixie" to mean "What you're saying is true and has relevance."

To "whistle Dixie" (literally) was to express support or nostalgia for the Confederacy, despite the fact that it was defeated and made completely irrelevant. If you're NOT whistling Dixie you're not expressing falsehood and/or supporting a lost cause.

 

[Davem123]

I may be "New In Town" by post counting but I've been a very regular lurker since 2011, as my join date shows. Thank you all for giving me hours of pleasurable nostalgia and ideas. I've been inspired to purchase a 1953 Royal Quiet Deluxe and an old Smith-Corona that I enjoy using.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I also often use the deleted expletive word "FAP" which was from the "Our Boarding House" comic strip. I rarely use the "D" word or other common curse words, and almost NEVER the "F" word. I much prefer cartoon references instead.

*Kaff! Gad! Awwwk!*

 

[Dennis Young]

Zounds and Gadzooks! J

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Zounds and Gadzooks! J

"zounds" (original pronunciation zoo- nds) is a slurring of "God's wounds". It was a sort of "oath in trivial matters", against which Pastor Faulstick would admonish his catechumens as a transgression of the Fourth Commandment, or an expression of surpise and shock.

I suspect that gadzooks has a similar origin.

 

[F. J.]

Third Commandment . . .

"zounds" (original pronunciation zoo- nds) is a slurring of "God's wounds". It was a sort of "oath in trivial matters", against which Pastor Faulstick would admonish his catechumens as a transgression of the Fourth Commandment, or an expression of surpise and shock.

I suspect that gadzooks has a similar origin.

So what exactly does that have to do with keeping the Sabbath?
I believe you mean the Third Commandment.

 

[Dennis Young]

Gadzooks = God’s Hooks. A mild oath. J
Others I like:
Doll dizzy
Snap your cap
Ducky shincracker
J

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

So what exactly does that have to do with keeping the Sabbath?
I believe you mean the Third Commandment.

Miscounted. Relevance is to taking the Lord's name in vain, as in taking oaths in trivial matters or swearing falsely. There are Protestant churches which frown on taking any oaths under any circumstances.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hence the presence of "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) thus and so..."

Quakers, among other groups, have historically taken a position against swearing oaths, but neither of our two Quaker presidents, Hoover and Nixon, chose to "affirm" rather than "swear" when taking the oath of office. However, Franklin Pierce, who was not a Quaker but an Episcopalian, did "affirm" rather than swear when taking the oath.