I know some of you will not understand this message, but I
bet you know someone who might. 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,?T ?~neckers
knobs.?T
Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction
first.
Any kids will probably have to find some older person over 50 to explain some
of these terms to you.
Remember 'Continental kits?' They
wer e 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 'foot feed.' Many today do not even know what a clutch is
or that the dimmer switchused to be on the floor.
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 fl oors 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 was 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 st ork 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 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 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?
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 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.
Just for fun, pass it along to others of 'a certain age.'
IF YOU AREN'T OF A CERTAIN AGE, YOU MUST KNOW SOMEONE Who is.