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FENDER SKIRTS
I came across this phrase yesterday 'FENDER
SKIRTS.'
A term I haven't heard in a long time, and thinking about 'fender skirts'
started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language
with hardly a notice like 'curb
feelers'
And 'steering knobs.' (AKA) suicide
knob,Neckers
Knobs.
Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.
When did we quit calling them 'emergency
brakes?'
I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the
accelerator the 'foot feed.' Many today do not even know what a
clutch is or that
the dimmer switch used
to be on the floor.
Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could
ride the 'running
board' up to the house?
Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore - 'store-bought.' Of
course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was
bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.
'Coast to coast' is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now
means almost nothing. Now we take the term 'world wide' for granted. This floors
me.
On a smaller scale, 'wall-to-wall' was
once a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered his or her
hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces
their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.
When's the
last time you heard the quaint phrase 'in
a family way?' It's hard to imagine that the word 'pregnant'
was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in
polite company, so we had all that talk about stork visits and 'being in a
family way' or simply 'expecting.'
Apparently 'brassiere' is
a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I
guess it's just 'bra' now. 'Unmentionables' probably wouldn't be understood at
all.
Here's a word I miss -'percolator.' That
was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? 'Coffee maker.'
How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.
I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now
sound so retro. Words like 'DynaFlow'
and 'Electrolux.'
Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with
'SpectraVision!'
Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago?
Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor
oil cured,
because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.
Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that
grieves me most, 'supper.'
Now everybody says 'dinner.' Save a great word. Invite
someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts
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