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 I never liked the saying the first time and I am glad that it's outdated now.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 These too have been replaced by several iterations of technology and I'm not sure how many people today would understand that phrase if they heard it.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.
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?
