I know the big game is coming up, and I am speaking of the Super Bowl…. you all know I am a big sports nut.
All true, except for one thing.
I am an even bigger fan of the National Anthem, Patriotism and Honoring our Service People, so the Captain and I made a decision to forego the football season this year.
‘Nuff said about that!!!
Moving on….
Several years ago, I wrote up a story using “phrases” that were used in my office days at Boeing.
It seemed that one could not speak without inserting one of these cute little phrases when talking “at the water cooler” about airplanes, repair, daily work and just general conversation.
Using phrases like “low hanging fruit” and “in the weeds” helped the person speaking… to emphasis his/her point, (whatever it might be) ….and so as a result, I jotted down many of these phrases and put them into story form.
If you missed my story, you can click here to read it.
I don’t like to “toot my own horn”, but I thought my story “cut to the chase”!
I remember teaching my twin sons how to fold a bed sheet and asking them to hold the sheet “taut” to which I received a quizzical look of what in the world is “taut”?
When I explained the word, they both said….. why don’t you just say tight or something?
It wasn’t until they both joined the Navy and heard that word many, many times, that they confessed Mom knew what she was talking about. LOL
Recently, I was sent sorta the same thing,…
……..only it is every day words and phrases that seem to have faded away into oblivion.
So imagine my “oh my goodness” moment when I read my email and found the following:
Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Lost Words from our childhood: Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really!
The other day a not so elderly lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said “What the heck is a Jalopy?”
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,” “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? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers…AND DON’T FORGET… Saddle Stitched Pants 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.
Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind We blink, and they’re gone. Where have all those great 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 nickels. Wake up and smell the roses.
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! (“Carter’s Little Liver Pills” are gone too!)
We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeable 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.
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth…
See ya later, alligator!
Okidoki
(author unknown)
So there you have it my friends….words of days gone by and phrases that I heard while working in an office environment.
To coin a phrase….
After while crocodile!!!
Oh, and as for the SuperBowl this year ?????
Adios, Amigo!
Blessings always!
Gail S says
Kari. I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts and this one brought back a lot of memories I too use some of the expressions you mentioned. Just the other day, I said Carter has liver pills and my son just looked at me like what are you talking about. Enjoy the rest of your week.
Kari says
Thank you Gail, for stopping by my blog…and I love the Carter liver pills comment to your son. How funny, thanks for sharing.
Tammy says
Hi! I just loved this post! I’m on the downside of 49 and still use quite a few of them….they come from my dear mother. Have an awesome Sunday!
Kari says
Oh Tammy, I still use a lot of them too….and what wonderful memories of your mother.
Bless you and thanks for stopping by.
toni596 says
I told my daughter to “xerox” something the other day on the printer and she said, “do you mean copy it?” She is 22 and apparently “xerox” is out! My mom told me that during the depression when anyone left, they always said, “write if you get work”…as a joke, so now I say it all the time…get some REALLY strange looks!
Kari says
That is funny….do you remember when we were getting ready to take tests at school, our teachers xeroxed our test papers and I particularly liked the smell of the freshly copied paper.LOL Thanks Toni for your comments, I so appreciate all of you.