Things We Used to Say

The genesis of this post came a few days ago when I posted this wonderful cartoon by Dan Piraro on my Facebook page:

As someone who loves to write - albeit with cursive of varying legibility - I thought this was pretty funny. Then my friend Patty posted a comment that some of the people she worked with don't know how to read a clock ... which led to my comment that in an age of digital clocks, the concept of clockwise and counterclockwise is dying out ... then Patty responded with "lefty loosey/righty tighty" ... which prompted Gonzo Dave to weigh in and suggest I do a post on obsolete (or at least obsolescent) terms and expressions.

Well, Dave, ask and you shall receive. Here are a few of the expressions that we still use, but which are slowly dying out or for which few people understand the derivation ...

Start over with a clean slate. How many of us have ever actually taken notes with chalk on an erasable slate tablet?

Like nails on a chalkboard. Nowadays we used whiteboards with erasable ink, which doesn't produce that horrifying screeeeeeech of nails being scraped across an actual slate chalkboard.

The B-Side. Once upon a time, in the era before digital downloads, music singles were released as 45 rpm records. The hit song was on the front (the "A" side), and a lesser tune was on the back (the "B" side).

Carbon copy. If you've never had the joy of fingers blackened by using carbon paper to make copies of typewritten documents, you're lucky.

"You sound like a broken record." A crack in a vinyl record would result in a skip and brief repeat of the preceding sound as the needle of the player struck it on each revolution. Someone who sounded like a broken record kept mindlessly repeating the same thing over and over.

"Drop a dime* on someone," or "dime someone out." Before everyone had a cell phone, we used coin-operated telephones, which used to cost 10¢ for a local call. Because those phones were often used by police informants to pass information to their handlers, diming someone out or dropping a dime on someone referred to ratting them out to the authorities.

"Don't touch that dial!" Back in the relative Stone Age of technology, before the universal use of remote controls for television sets, announcers used to encourage you to stay tuned during commercials by warning you not to turn the tuning dial to another station.

The boob tube. This expression for a television set did not refer to the widespread availability of female nudity (which we never saw in pre-cable days, anyhow) ... in this case, boob meant idiot, which is what you would become if you watched too much TV, and tube referred to the fact that TV sets used to be large and heavy because they were built around heavy, bulky cathode ray tubes. No flat screens in the old days.

And finally,

Pen pals. In the days before instant messaging, e-mail, and texts, we wrote letters to each other, putting ink on paper to convey information, then sending the letters to our friends by postal mail. Those with whom we exchanged letters became our pen pals**. Keyboard Pals doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

Okay, I've started this off - who else has any thoughts on expressions that are going out of date? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I remember when it was five cents.

** Hi, Amanda!