Lost Words

 

Lost Words from our childhood: 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.

So let's illuminate some old expressions that have become obsolete

because of the inexorable march of technology. Phrases like: 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

little 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.