Lost Words from Childhood

  A lot of these are before our time. When I use a couple of these with younger people...they have no idea what I am talking about. 

  Even when I was growing up I wondered when my late Uncle John would say...."Don't take any wooden nickels". 

  A few years ago I read how at one time, during World War 2, to save the metals for war machinery...the government made wooden coins for a short time. As time when on they were considered obsolete...but some people would pass them off with out you being aware...that's at least how I heard it..

  For the heck of it ...keep this list with you...see how others react when you use them.  Cheers, Joe

PS...About 30 years ago my daughter was with me (she was 7 or 8 at that time) riding down this bumpy road...I said...Washboard Lane...she said: "Dad, What's a Washboard"?

Lost Words from our childhood 

The other day a not so elderly (65) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said, "What is a Jalopy?"

So they went to the computer and pulled up a picture from the movie "The

Grapes of Wrath." Now that was a Jalopy!

I hope you are Hunky dory after you read this and chuckle...

*WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD*

by Richard Lederer

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." A bevy of readers have asked me to shine

light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and

tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We'd cut a rug in some

juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and

billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some

passion pit or lovers lane. 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. 

Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim,

we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a

short nap, and before we can say, 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, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We

blink, and they're gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our

perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy

cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder's

monkey. 

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those

phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the

starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston. The very

idea! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a

grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe.

Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus.

Cooties. Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any

wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go! 

Oh, my stars and garters! 

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful 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.

See ya later, alligator!