FENDER SKIRTS AND SUPPER I know some of you will not understand this message, but I bet you know someone who might. I came across this phrase yesterday. FENDER SKIRTS A term I havent 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 Id been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Any kids will probably have to find some older person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you. Remember Continental kits? They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental. When did we quit calling them emergency brakes? At some point parking brake became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with emergency brake. Im 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. For that matter, the starter was down there too. Didnt you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the running boardup to the house? Heres 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 worldwide 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 was the last time you heard the quaint phrasein a family way? Its 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 its just bra now. Unmentionables probably wouldnt be understood at all. I always loved going to the picture show, but I considered movie an affectation. Most of these words go back to the 50s, but heres a pure 60s word I came across the other day: rat fink. Ooh, what a nasty put-down! Heres 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 Dyna Flow and Electrolux and Frigidaire. Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with Spectra Vision! Food for thought. Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago?Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe thats what Castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with Castor Oil anymore. Some words arent gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most is supper. Now everybody says dinner. Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts. Someone forwarded this to me. I thought some of us of a certain age would remember most of these. Just for fun, pass it along to others of a certain age. IF YOU ARENT OF A CERTAIN AGE, YOU MUST KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:51:28 +0000
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