Language of the Old
Do You Remember that Word??? Mergatroyd! Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Mergatroyd? Heavens to Mergatroyd!
The other day a not so elderly (I say 75, ahem!) 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 had 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. 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. You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business"!!!
We are the children of the fabulous '50s. No one will ever have that opportunity again. We were given one of our most precious gifts: Living in the peaceful and comfortable times created for us by the greatest generation. OK if crawling under school desks for nuclear attack drills. The Cold War is peaceful and comfortable, but the cars and the music were keen!
