Words, words, words

"OLD WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD"
By: Richard Lederer (A remarkable local Linguist).


About a month ago in this space, I illuminated old expressions that
have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology.

These phrases included: don’t touch that dial, carbon copy, you
sound like a broken record and hung out to dry. A bevy of readers
have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and
I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We’d put on our best
bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right.
Hubba hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking
and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and
pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers’
lane. Heavens to Betsy!
Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ 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? Swell has gone the way of beehives,
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.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy
Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely
has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “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.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left
behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and
wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula
hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored
sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have
all those phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it.
Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned
in Boston . The very idea!
It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain.
Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain.
Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense.
Fiddlesticks! Kiddidlehopper! You look like the wreck of the
Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny
papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels.

Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost
words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our
youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as
one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the
same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream
into the past, forever making a different river.

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.

We can have archaic and eat it, too! Badda Bing, Badda Boom!

He forgot about "Watching the submarine races."

That used to be a favorite past time of me and my honey.

I have to admit that I still use the term more something than carter's got liver pills, and I still say I wouldn't do something for all the tea in china.
Bet some of y'all do too.  Oh yeah, and my hair sometimes looks like Clem Kadiddlehopper.

As Red Skelton always said, "Good Night and God Bless."

Red Skelton... a class act.

That was as funny as a screen door in a submarine. You fink.

Yeah and it was long. In fact, just posting it was almost too much sugar for a dime. That's why I don't print long posts but once in a coon's age.

If you don't like it just remember that

The worms crawl in
The worms crawl out
The worms play checkerboard
Up your snout

Do me a favor, drop dead.

JK

I thought it was the cat's meow. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Listen don't get a bee in your bonnet I was just joshin ya

Didn't mean to cause a ruckus.

Sorry 'bout that Chief.

This has been about as funny as a flood in a fizzies factory.  I wasn't pitching a conniption fit but sometimes I am a bit of a sad sack.

No sweat, man, I wasn't trying to put a fly in your ointment. It's all just water under the bridge.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away and barefoot.

nochain wrote:

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away and barefoot.

I don't mind being criticized because it ain't no skin off my teeth.

(Where in the world did that phrase originate? I wonder.)

Eddard wrote:

I don't mind being criticized because it ain't no skin off my teeth.

(Where in the world did that phrase originate? I wonder.)

Interesting site

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/64840/where-does-the-phrase-no-skin-off-my-teeth-nose-come-from

All hat... no cattle. Lol... Tx has some good ones. One of my favorites my granddad said one day. He was an engineer and had told a young guy what a problem was. The young guy then said that there had been advances and that my granddad was simply wrong and outdated. Turned out my granddad was exactly right... he then turned to me and said "well... I guess he taught me a lesson he'll never forget." I also remember one of my rancher relatives saying "he likes pounding his head against a brick wall... because it feels so damn good when he stops."