Fender Skirts
Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:40 pm
A term I haven't heard in a long time. and thinking about fender skirts started me thinking about other words that quietly disappeared from our language with hardly a notice like curb feelers:
And steering knobs, AKA suicide knob.
Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went in that direction first.
Any kids reading this will probably have to find some elderly 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.
I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the footfeed.
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 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'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.
I always loved going to the picture show, but I considered movie an affectation.
Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s expression I came across the other day--rat fink. Oooh, what a nasty put-down!
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? Or consumption? 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 is supper. Now everybody says dinner. Save great words. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts.
And steering knobs, AKA suicide knob.
Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went in that direction first.
Any kids reading this will probably have to find some elderly 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.
I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the footfeed.
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 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'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.
I always loved going to the picture show, but I considered movie an affectation.
Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s expression I came across the other day--rat fink. Oooh, what a nasty put-down!
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? Or consumption? 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 is supper. Now everybody says dinner. Save great words. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts.