Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Stanley Doble]

"Is this, like, fresh squeezed?"

"Yes it is"

"Cool!"

I wasn't lying. Of all the brands of frozen orange juice I chose that one because it was most LIKE fresh squeezed.

(If you are curious it was Old South brand, which was remarkably like fresh squeezed 25 years ago. Not so much today unfortunately)

 

[p51]

Here in HoosierLand it goes: " I liked to died when I heard that"...but who's Elizabethan..? Was she married to some guy named Shakespeare..?? :becky:

In the Deep South, I used to hear, "I like to fell out," which denoted surprise over something.
Didn't make a lot of sense to me then.
Makes even less to me now.

 

[EliasRDA]

When I was in school in Baltimore many years ago, I often heard the word "like" used in a peculiar way, as in "I like to die when I heard that." It was only recently that I discovered it was an Elizabethan usage and is to be found in the works of Shakespeare, Jonson, and others. That makes sense to me, as the Baltimore dialect (variations found in Del. and Virginia) still has the rounded English "O" of that time.

TropicalBob,
I've spent near 30 yrs in DE, Sussex county aka Suckit cty, & have never heard this. That is I think I understand what you are saying is that the dialect that is found in B-More is found also in DE & VA, eastern shore.
Well, if that is true its because so many of you have moved here, & its now being replaced by NY/NJ accents.

Sussex DE used to have its own speak & dialect, least to this new England person. I still call it Slower, Lower DE & not the LSD that some of the idjuits do playing on Lower Slower DE.

Its funny, when I spent summers down here in the late 70's early 80s (moved here full time early mid 80's after HS) people would pick up that I was from Boston as my schools in SE CT were proper public schools. But when I went back to CT they would say they could tell I was in the "south" as I would pick up the drawl in 2 months. Now I have a mixed accent that really throws people, especially when I fall into old habits of speaking quickly.

Oh well, lets see, how about "in a month of sundays". Anyone mention that one?

 

[Talbot]

Reminds me of another - 'Slow as a wet week'.

 

[tropicalbob]

When I was an undergraduate I did a dialect survey on the Cape May N.J.-Lewes Del. ferry and discovered that the So. NJ one was influenced by Philadelphia while the Del. was a part of the DelMarVa dialect. The latter is particularly interesting on the Eastern Shore because, until the opening of the Bay Bridge, it was fairly isolated and thus retained much of the 17th century usage,

 

[tropicalbob]

I became interested in this when I was a kid and my dad took me with him one time when he had business with Purdue Chicken Farms on the Eastern Shore. We had lunch in a diner there, and I was astonished when the waitress said "thee' and "thou" when speaking to us with, what sounded to me, a distinctly English accent.

 

[PeterB]

Hi Everyone,

I am new on this thread. Must be my age, but I or my close relations and friends use just about all the quaint phrases all of you have been posting. Plus one or two more. I never thought about all the curious terms that we must be uttering daily, but may notice them more now. I get the impression that such phrases have fallen out of use in the US and UK; many phrases in English that are unused in their place of origin survive where English is a second language (such as India or the Philippines).

Best

Peter

 

[fashion frank]

Hi Everyone,

I am new on this thread. Must be my age, but I or my close relations and friends use just about all the quaint phrases all of you have been posting. Plus one or two more. I never thought about all the curious terms that we must be uttering daily, but may notice them more now. I get the impression that such phrases have fallen out of use in the US and UK; many phrases in English that are unused in their place of origin survive where English is a second language (such as India or the Philippines).

Best

Peter

Hi PeterB welcome to the Forum you will find a awesome group of people here ,welcome aboard.

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[PeterB]

Thanks Frank, sadly, the forum is addictive, and I sit here at work strolling through old posts. Never knew there were so many people out there with the same interests as me, and so much knowledge.

 

[tropicalbob]

Hi, PeterB. My wife is Indian, and I often hear her relatives using Victorian terms which to us sound very anachronistic. What most folks don't realize in this country is that Black American speech retains a lot of terms and grammatical structures that came from Shakespeare's time, largely because of their isolation in small communities in the U.S.: "I axe you a question" and " I be tired" are two examples.

 

[BigFitz]

"Bread and butter"-My Grandmother used to recite this superstitious phrase every time we were walking along and any obstacle would separate us.

 

[skydog757]

"Bread and butter"-My Grandmother used to recite this superstitious phrase every time we were walking along and any obstacle would separate us.

I had forgotten that one. This isn't a "Term", but my Grandmother had a superstitious habit - whenever you gave her something pointed (like scissors, a needle, a knife, etc) she insisted on paying you something for it. Usually just a token amount like a penny or another small coin.

 

[Stanley Doble]

How a bout 'slow as molasses in January'

 

[LizzieMaine]

That one lost its popularity in New England.

 

[EliasRDA]

TropicalBob,
Interesting, & very interesting that you did that type of graduate work. Lewes-CM ferry isn't too far from me, maybe about 15 mins on a heavy traffic day. I came here part time in the mid-late 70's & full time in the early mid 80's, talking to the old timer true Sussex Countians was interesting but I never picked up on anything like that, as you mentioned. But then again as a newly minted adult I may not have paid much attention to it either. Course then again being from CT it may not have struck my ear as being unusual since I was used to a Bostonian accent.

I'm fairly sure that if you did that study today here you would not find the same thing, unless you spoke to the 80+ y/o true Sussex Countians & even they are losing that accent. 8-(

This whole forum is interesting to me, I have to stop myself sometimes from resurrecting an old thread. 8-/

 

[PeterB]

Yes. Indians retain some quaint phrases but they are not so common among the new generation. And you are right. "Axe" was at one time the correct word.

 

[Stanley Doble]

The only time I have seen "bread and butter" used that way was in the first Topper movie. There is a scene where a squad of cops in a hotel lobby join hands and "rake" the room to catch a ghost. As they go around a small table, hands still linked, one cop says "bread and butter".

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Good question, we have them all over town, here. I have one behind my house (Ironically, my driveway comes off the street anyway). I had one behind my apartment I lived in before I bought the house, too.

When did that happen? The city we live in has alleys in many of the residential areas. lol

We have the plastic ones at our cabin, still. Been there all my life.

When was the last time you saw a Zarf?

For those of you who are not Lizzie Maine, in the sixties and seventies some restaurants served coffee in disposable plastic or paper cups set in a metal or plastic holder.

The holder is called a Zarf. A quick web search turned up the information that the zarf dates back to the 13th century and is Arabic in origin. I never knew that. Also, the cardboard sleeve they put on take out coffees is a kind of zarf. Didn't know that either.

Everyone gets fancy titles except where we work lol. My position is a "Barrel Dumper." They call us "Dumpers" and we work in the "Dump Room." It's not what you think, we make various blends of cheese up there.

Just as a Garbage Man is now know by the PC term Sanitation Engineer.
I love how people try to make their job look like something it isn't. lol lol

 

[Fading Fast]

The only time I have seen "bread and butter" used that way was in the first Topper movie. There is a scene where a squad of cops in a hotel lobby join hands and "rake" the room to catch a ghost. As they go around a small table, hands still linked, one cop says "bread and butter".

It's one of those terms that does pop up occasionally in movies of the period (no examples come to mind, but I have definitely heard it) and my girlfriend uses it as her grandparents did. Beside the natural death of terms, my guess is that very few people eat bread and butter sandwiches today, so its subtle reference to separating two identical and connected things (hands in this case) might be lost on a younger generation that only knows butter on one side of bread as a complimentary starter to a meal. I ate bread and butter sandwiches growing up (my mom was not a good cook and money wasn't plentiful), so while the term wasn't used in my house (that I remember), I understood its meaning once I heard the expression. And I still enjoy a good bread and butter sandwich today.

 

[tropicalbob]

I remember a cartoon from the late '30's or early '40's in which an army of worker ants are shown going in and out of a building. As the column going in passes the one coming out they all repeat "bread and butter" to each other, kind of like,"Well, it's a living."