Tuesday, April 24, 2018

U is for Up your nose with a rubber hose.

or Part Two of Twenty Words and Phrases that Show Your Age

Yesterday, I mentioned a link from Dictionary.com that listed 20 words or phrases that are considered dated. I discussed my opinions on ten from the list yesterday and today I will give my opinions on the other 10.

1. Up your nose with a rubber hose: This phrase comes from the sitcom, Welcome Back Kotter, a popular TV show in the 1970s. One of the characters would use this phrase as an insult. I never liked the saying the first time and I am glad that it's outdated now.
2. Pigpen, you got your ears on?: This is something you would say on a CB radio. CB radios were really trendy in the late 1970s and used for communication between truckers mostly. These too have been replaced by several iterations of technology and I'm not sure how many people today would understand that phrase if they heard it.

3. Walkman: A Walkman was a portable tape player that came out in 1979 and became very popular. But technology has evolved light years away from it. Yep, this is an word that shows your age.

4. Fotomat: A Fotomat was a place where you dropped off your film to be developed. This is definitely an old word because people using film to take a picture are few and far between these days.

5. Goodnight, John-Boy: This was the last line in most episodes of the heartwarming TV series, The Waltons. The show aired for a decade starting in 1971. I'm not sure how many people today have seen the Waltons so I've got to believe this is a dated phrase.

6. The thrill of victory (and the agony of defeat): This was one of the opening lines to the TV show, The Wide World of Sports that ran from 1961-1998. The list authors said that we have 24/7 sports watching available now and the the phrase is no longer relevant. I think it was a great phrase and should still be around.

7. Just one more thing: I didn't even know that this was a special phrase. Apparently on the TV show, Colombo, Detective Colombo used it a lot. So did Steve Jobs later. I have no opinion on this one except sometimes it is a useful thing to say.

8. Mood ring: Mood rings were popular in the 1970s. It was a ring that changed colors depending on your body temperature. Body temperature was supposedly an indication of emotions or moods and different temperatures produced different colors. Thus, you could supposedly tell someone's mood by looking at the color of the ring. This is an old fad, but I think it is a fun thing to remember.

9. Pet Rock™: Pet rocks were also a fad in the mid 1970's when people bought rocks to be their pets. The marketing genius, Gary Dahl, behind the fad became a millionaire from it. The fad only lasted 6 months, but it does come up then and again in discussions about how people will buy anything. Today, it is a trend to paint rocks with positive messages on them and leave them random places for people to find. Occasionally, I hear these kindness rocks compared to pet rocks.

10. Rolodex: a Roladex is a turning paper address file that very few people use any more. Most contact information is located on a person's computer or smart device these days. I will grant you that Rolodex is an old term.

Once again I had my Millennial son look at the list and tell me what he thought about the words. He said the The thrill of victory (and the agony of defeat) was the only one he heard used regularly. I found that interesting and not what I would have predicted.

So what do these words and phrases say to you?





19 comments:

  1. I am laughing because I just recently tossed my old rolodex.

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    1. I never had one officially, but they always looked very efficient.

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  2. OMG, you are makin' me feel old! I loved my mood ring as a kid - though I don't really remember it working. It must have been a cheap one. And the fotomat... reminds me of a joke that nobody under 50 will understand. What did Snow White say when she took her film to the fotomat? Some day my prints will come...

    Anyhow, I don't remember most of those phrases. I was a child in the '70s, so I missed most of those TV shows except for the occasional rerun. Did people really buy pet rocks? I sorta thought that was a joke!

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    1. Love the Snow White joke! I'll have to tell it to my Middle Son who is a photographer at Walt Disney World :)

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    2. People really did buy pet rocks. I had a friend with kids at the time who had her kids go out and collect smooth rocks to sell as pet rocks. An enterprising mother and kids. :)

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  3. I sorta remember the Welcome Back, Kotter phrase but I wasn't allowed to watch the show--I heard it from other kids at school. I remember hearing more phrases from Happy Days instead--seems to me that show was more ubiquitous. But ... you needed a "U" title so that phrase worked!

    I owned a walkman ... and a mood ring. I've seen mood rings in stores in the past 2 or 3 years, so I think they have made a comeback, although not as big as the first time. "Goodnight, John Boy" was a little before my time but everyone my age knew the phrase and would use it. I thought "the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat" was from the Olympics, so I'm glad you corrected me on that!

    I can safely say that I no longer use any of these phrases! They were fun to re-visit!

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    1. I wonder why they didn't include any sayings from Happy Days? It was around longer and watched by more people than Welcome Back Kotter.

      I will say, also, that I don't use any of these phrases regularly either. Can't say the same about yesterday's list, though.

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  4. I don't know the first two expressions at all, never heard them at all.

    I had several Sony Walkmans (Walkmen? LOL) when I was a teen. We also called it "Walkman" in French, with a French accent of course! When Sony came up with a digital MP3 player, they still called it the Walkman. I have one of those. Unfortunately the screen is broken and my computer doesn't recognize it as a drive so I'm not able to load music on it so it's in my pile of items to take to the landfill (they recycle electronics). I'll post a picture of it in my post tonight!

    I never watched the Waltons but know the "Goodnight John-Boy" since I was very much into learning American TV trivia when I first moved here. Still have never seen "The Waltons" though. Same story with "The thrill of victory and agony of defeat" although I never knew the origin of it.

    I'm a HUGE Columbo fan, started watching it in France, so I definitely know "One more thing..." LOL. I own the whole Columbo collection on DVD. It used to be on Netflix but it's probably not there anymore. I remember that I was watching Columbo on TV when my mom had my sister, back in 1979.

    I used a Rolodex in my job as a secretary for many years.

    I learned about mood rings and pet rocks when I moved over here. We never had those in France.

    So I just queried Youngest Son (16, never watches TV) about the whole list and here were his answers:

    1. Making whoopee: No idea

    2. Wet-blanket: No idea

    3. Little black book: No idea

    4. VCR and videotape: Knew was a videotape was but didn't know what a VCR was. Thought the machine that plays video tapes was a "tape player".

    5. Long-distance call: a call that comes from far away

    6. Davenport and Chesterfield: Heard of Davenport but didn't know the context of it, didn't know Chesterfield

    7. How’s tricks?: No idea

    8. “Dear John” letter: No idea

    9. Web surfing: looking through the internet

    10. Fuddy-duddy: No idea

    11. Up your nose with a rubber hose: No idea

    12. Pigpen, you got your ears on?: No idea

    13. Walkman: a radio you clipped on, that came with headphones

    14. Fotomat: a printing process?

    15. Goodnight, John-Boy: No idea

    16. The thrill of victory (and the agony of defeat): No idea

    17. Just one more thing: No idea

    18. Mood ring: a ring that changes color depending on your mood, supposedly. But thought it was popular in the 80s.

    19. Pet Rock™: thought it was a band name. When I explained what it was, he said "they must have all been on crack back then!" Interesting that he DOES know what crack is. Wasn't that also popular in the 80s?

    20. Rolodex: thought it was a watch. I told him that was a Rolex. When I explained what a Rolodex was, he suddenly remembered that he had seen one... on a Spongebob special!

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    1. I think he confused Pet Rock with Kid Rock. ;)

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    2. Ooh, good thought. I didn't think of that at all!

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    3. I had to chuckle at a couple of your son's responses. Thanks for asking him. It was fun to hear what a teenager knows about these words.

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    4. I have a Kid Rock story. He's from the Detroit area and I grew up about an hour north of Detroit. My dad was a part-time real estate agent and he had a listing for a horse farm. He came home from a showing and told my mom "You won't believe the couple who looked at that farm today. They look like they don't have two cents to rub together. There's no way they can afford that place!" Turns out, it was Kid Rock (and whoever his significant other was). All of us kids got a chuckle out of that!

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    5. That’s too funny, but I have to agree with your dad on the looks. However as far as music goes, I really like Kid Rock.

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    6. Yes, Kid Rock does give off a scruffy vibe! I completely understood where my dad was coming from.

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  5. I used to love watching Wide World of Sports! I hadn't heard of the first, second, and seventh items on your list.

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    1. WWS was a good show even for people who weren't into sports because they showed such a nice variety. Also, from my perspective, the phrases you hadn't heard of are most obscure ones on the list.

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  6. I remember all those times, especially all the CB slogan as it was very popular where I lived in a very small southern Oregon town back then. Everyone had to have a CB and a "handle".

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    1. How did I come off as unknown, this is Jody, Strayer. I must be signed out.

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What do you think?