Lost words & phrases
You will only recognize some of
these terms if
you are ‘of a
certain
age’...!
Heavens
to
Murgatroyd!
Would you
believe the
email spell
checker did
not recognize
the word
murgatroyd?
Lost
Words from our
childhood:
Words
are gone as
fast as the
buggy whip!
Sad really!
The other day
a not so
elderly (65)
lady said
something to
her son about
driving a
jalopy and he
looked at her
quizzically
and said what
the heck is a
jalopy? OMG
(new phrase!)
he never heard
of the word
jalopy!! She
knew she was
old but not
that old...
Well,
I hope you are
Hunky Dory
after you read
this and
chuckle...
About
a month ago, I
illuminated
some old
expressions
that have
become
obsolete
because of the
inexorable
march of
technology.
These phrases
included
"Don't touch
that dial,"
"Carbon copy,"
"Central",
"You sound
like a broken
record" and
"Hung out to
dry."
Back
in the olden
days we had a
lot of moxie.
We'd put on
our best bib
and
tucker to
straighten up
and fly right
Heavens
to Betsy! Gee
whillikers!
Jumping
Jehoshaphat!
Holy moley!
We
were in like
Flynn and
living the
life of Riley,
and even a
regular guy
couldn't
accuse us of
being a
knucklehead, a
nincompoop or
a pill. Not
for all the
tea in China!
Back
in the olden
days, life
used to be
swell, but
when's the
last time
anything was
swell? How
about a ‘fell
swoop’? (or a
swell foop for
that matter)
Swell
has gone the
way of
beehives, flat
tops, crew
cuts, pageboys
and the D.A.;
of spats,
knickers,
fedoras,
poodle skirts,
saddle shoes
and pedal
pushers.
Oh,
my aching
back. Kilroy
was here, but
he isn't
anymore.
We
wake up from
what surely
has been just
a short nap,
and before we
can say, well
I'll be a
monkey's
uncle! or This
is a fine
kettle of
fish! We
discover that
the words we
grew up with,-
the words that
seemed
omnipresent as
oxygen, have
vanished with
scarcely a
notice from
our tongues
and our pens
and our
keyboards.
(Where's my
fountain pen?
let alone the
ink well!)
Poof,
go the words
of our youth,
the words
we've left
behind. We
blink, and
they're gone.
Where have all
those phrases
gone?
Long
gone: Pshaw,
The milkman
did it. Hey!
It's your
nickel.
Don't
forget to pull
the
chain.
Knee high to a
grasshopper.
Well,
Fiddlesticks!
Going like
sixty.
I'll see you
in the funny
papers.
Don't take
any wooden
nickles. ~
What about
‘likketysplit’?
It
turns out
there are more
of these lost
words and
expressions
than
Carter has
little liver
pills.
This
can be
disturbing
stuff !
We
of a certain
age have been
blessed to
live in
changeful
times. For a
child each new
word is like a
shiny toy, a
toy that has
no age. We at
the
other end of
the
chronological
arc have the
advantage of
remembering
there
are words that
once did not
exist and
there were
words that
once
strutted
their hour
upon the
earthly stage
and now are
heard no more,
except
in our
collective
memory. It's
one of the
greatest
advantages of
aging.
See
ya later,
alligator!
After while,
crocodile!
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