Old Memories

muggle not

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Th pictures are missin in the post but the memories may still be there for some of you:

I came across this phrase yesterday "FENDER SKIRTS".

A term I haven't 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 [also lover's knobs]

Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.
Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember "Continental kits?" < SPAN style="BACKGROUND-POSITION: 0% 50%">
They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire c! overs th at 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 "foot feed."

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 "world wide" 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 h ardwood floors. Go fig ure.

When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?" It's hard to imagin e 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.
&nb sp;
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 word I came across the other day - "rat fink." Ooh, 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 retr o. Words like "DynaFlow" and "Electrolux." Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with "SpectraVision!"

Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's w hat castor oil cured, b ecause 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 "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.
 
Muggle... I still say supper all the time... In my head supper sounds like what I eat at night, and dinner sounds more family around the table.

Is this backwards from your experience?

We'd ask growing up... "Mom, what's for supper?" and if it was a nice meal we at the Dinner table (not the "breakfast" table)
 
How about anything leaving the Earth and going into space not being a big deal. I was amazed when Yuri Gegarin from the USSR became the first man in space and totally astounded when Niel Armstrong made that "one small step."
 
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