LOST WORDS FROM OUR CHILDHOOD
Yep, remember them all...........💗
Some of you may be too young
.........
Mergatroyd!...
Do you remember that word? Would you
believe the spell-checker did
not recognize the word Mergatroyd?
Heavens to Mergatroyd!
The other day a not so elderly (I
say 75) lady said something to
her son about driving a Jalopy; and
he looked at her quizzically
and said "What the heck is a
Jalopy?" He never heard of the word
jalopy!! She knew she was old....
But not that old.
Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory
after you read this and chuckle.
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.
Back in the olden days we had a lot
of moxie. We'd put on our best
bib and tucker, to straighten up and
fly right.
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.
We wake up from what surely has been
just a short nap, and before
we can say, “Well, 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, go the words of our youth, the
words we've left behind. We
blink, and they're gone. Where have
all those great phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did
it. Hey! It's your nickel. Don't
forget to pull the chain. Knee high
to a grasshopper. Well,
Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll
see you in the funny papers.
Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake
up and smell the roses.
It turns out there are more of these
lost words and expressions
than Carter has liver pills. This
can be disturbing stuff!
(Carter's Little Liver Pills are
gone too!) We of a certain age
have been blessed to live in
changeable 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.
Leaves us to wonder where Superman
will find a phone booth...
See ya later, alligator! Oki-doki
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS
50'S..NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE
THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN...WE WERE
GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS:
LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND
COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY
THE “GREATEST GENERATION!”
