Words that have stopped being used or changed meaning

[silky52]

I think I've heard that one someplace. In New York, they are called sanitation workers. Doesn't sound too pretentious, until you remember that most people call them garbage men. Or, to account for gender. garbage collectors.

Prisons and jails have long been correctional facilities. Ironic, because most of the people who go into them come out worse, not corrected.

The former guards (once called "screws" by inmates in some places) are now corrections officers. New York City also calls them "New York's Boldest" to go along with the other flattering names given to city employees. Personally, I wouldn't want to work all day surrounded by thousands of people who hate me.

https://www.informnny.com/wp-conten...903743_91173761_ver1.0.jpg?w=572&h=324&crop=1

My worst nightmare being on both sides of that scenario.

 

[silky52]

That was really popular in the UK about 10-15 years ago!


Heh. I saw that in the cinema with a guy from New England who had been in London for a couple weeks and never been to Scotland. Bless him, he bought the book afterwards and spent months trying to puzzle it out!

I think Brits are more used to having to tone down their dialects when speaking to anyone from ten miles away, so you won't notice most UK accents as being anything other than generic Briddish. And we're used to American accents from TV, so apply them when not immediately understood. I've got a strong London accent nowadays, but as soon as I'm across the pond, it turns into RP mixed with transatlantic, just so I don't have to repeat myself so much. And it gets more American in hot weather, to remind me to ask for 'warder' not 'wa'er'...


It's a pet peeve with UK engineers. If you aren't a Chartered Engineer or have similar letters after your name, people will assume you're a basic repairs person or glorified cleaner.

Well, I haven't lived in the UK for a very long time, and my accent is not what it was when I lived there. Apparently, I sound like a foreigner, whatever that is these days in England. I'm originally from North London and Hertfordshire, so I guess speaking two languages for 2/3 of my life has taken its toll on my accent.
I know you are talking about the film Train Spotting, but when I was a kid we used to car spot! lol What a waste of time. In those days in North Hertfodshire there weren't so many cars!
I've worked with engineers and they can be a bit up their arses too, who cares what anyone thinks so long as you are not stealing for a living!!

 

[gunhilltrain]

I think Brits are more used to having to tone down their dialects when speaking to anyone from ten miles away, so you won't notice most UK accents as being anything other than generic Briddish. And we're used to American accents from TV, so apply them when not immediately understood. I've got a strong London accent nowadays, but as soon as I'm across the pond, it turns into RP mixed with transatlantic, just so I don't have to repeat myself so much. And it gets more American in hot weather, to remind me to ask for 'warder' not 'wa'er'...

Isn't that a more recent thing with toning down accents? (You mentioned television, which wasn't around much before 1950 or so.) And isn't social class also part of it?

Americans have regional accents too. I know a guy from Texas who can sound "Texan," but he usually has a generic American sound. I suspect the former is his real self.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My worst nightmare being on both sides of that scenario.

You mean prisons? At least the guards can go home, or just quit if it becomes too much. You should visit Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which has been turned into a museum. Not the same as being in a working prison, but it gives some idea of what it's like. It's nice to just walk out the front door when you're done.

https://www.easternstate.org/

 

[billrokra]

The word 'wireless' always seemed a terribly dated word for 'radio' when I was growing up, so it is interesting to have witnessed it come full circle to be an everyday phrase in digital communication.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Isn't that a more recent thing with toning down accents? (You mentioned television, which wasn't around much before 1950 or so.) And isn't social class also part of it?

People who travelled round the country had to adapt to be understood since ever (Caxton's egges/eyren anecdote, 1490). Social class is of course related - the lower classes who didn't travel much had the strongest dialects, which is still the case, though you also had the RP accent derived from boys who went to public (ie posh private boarding) schools round the country.

University became a great leveller when it expanded in the 60s (Brits traditionally live in their uni towns, never at home until the last few years). My dad was a grammar school boy made good and ended up at uni in London. He had a Midlands accent from near Birmingham. All the lads in his hall (dorm) took the piss, with the result that within a couple months he acquired perfect RP and sounds like a BBC newsreader.

But all students even in the 90s ended up with milder versions of the accents they'd started with, just from all the mixing, though generally not the same as the locals. Which meant students were identifiable as soon as they opened their mouths, if not by clothing. Code-switching to sound more like people round you is still really useful, even if pub clientele are less likely to beat up non-locals nowadays.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The word 'wireless' always seemed a terribly dated word for 'radio' when I was growing up, so it is interesting to have witnessed it come full circle to be an everyday phrase in digital communication.

Probably wireless was first used to describe the devices aboard ships that used Morse code to communicate. That must have started around 1900? The wireless messages had a huge impact in the Titanic story of course. It was quite an advance for ships to communicate beyond the range of signal flags or whatever was used before that. A Night to Remember has the best depictions of wireless in that incident - both how it failed and how it succeeded.

 

[ruddygore]

I'm a boomer, and never once used "like" the way it became overused in about 1998, as a substitute for the word "said".

"Like, far out, man" is a totally different usage entirely, only used when off one's face, listening to Pink Floyd on headphones.

Or if you're stoned out of your mind watching Fantasia.

When did stoned change from a method of execution to being under the influence of mind altering substances?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Or if you're stoned out of your mind watching Fantasia.

When did stoned change from a method of execution to being under the influence of mind altering substances?

That too!

Mid twentieth century, I'd say.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I just read "Concording" in a John le Carré novel published in 1993, meaning a transatlantic flight in a Concord. That's not going to happen ever again.

 

[MrPixel]

I just read "Concording" in a John le Carré novel published in 1993, meaning a transatlantic flight in a Concord. That's not going to happen ever again.

That's no better than, and equally transient as "Krogering", from 1998. IIRC the ad campaign was mocked on SNL, but was picked up in the general vernacular for a few weeks. It morphed into a giggle-euphemism for cruising the local supermarket on Friday nights looking for a date, but quickly faded.

 

[gunhilltrain]

That too!

Mid twentieth century, I'd say.

I can't find the post now, but you called yourself a boomer. Was there actually a "baby boom" in Australia after World War II, or were you just using it as a figure of speech? A lot of those American generation tags don't make sense elsewhere. People of that age cohort wouldn't be "boomers" in Portugal, Mexico, etc.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I just read "Concording" in a John le Carré novel published in 1993, meaning a transatlantic flight in a Concord. That's not going to happen ever again.

Not the Concorde, but thee may in other supersonic planes in the future.

 

[gunhilltrain]

That's no better than, and equally transient as "Krogering", from 1998. IIRC the ad campaign was mocked on SNL, but was picked up in the general vernacular for a few weeks. It morphed into a giggle-euphemism for cruising the local supermarket on Friday nights looking for a date, but quickly faded.

Sounds like you'd have to be pretty desperate to do that in a supermarket, although I don't have any better ideas myself.

 

[TxRad]

Sounds like you'd have to be pretty desperate to do that in a supermarket, although I don't have any better ideas myself.

Such a deal I have for you. How to Pick Up Chicks in 14 Departments

 

[gunhilltrain]

Such a deal I have for you. How to Pick Up Chicks in 14 Departments

Did you try these yourself, or did you just make it up? Or maybe a little of both? Tongue-in-cheek, in other words.

 

[TxRad]

Did you try these yourself, or did you just make it up? Or maybe a little of both? Tongue-in-cheek, in other words.

I wrote that in about two hours around five in the morning before I went to work. I was staying in a motel across the road from a Wal-Mart and I didn't have a story in mind as I sat at the table eating breakfast looking out across the parking lot. When I finished eating, I typed the story up and headed off for work on a drilling rig. Total tongue in cheek.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I wrote that in about two hours around five in the morning before I went to work. I was staying in a motel across the road from a Wal-Mart and I didn't have a story in mind as I sat at the table eating breakfast looking out across the parking lot. When I finished eating, I typed the story up and headed off for work on a drilling rig. Total tongue in cheek.

And yet I'm sure some guys took your advice anyway. I've seen a video where a woman goes into Home Depot to look for guys. I think she was going tongue-in-cheek too.

Maybe pantyhose are a bummer, but the traditional garter and straps are still sold. There is also an all-in-one garter-straps-stockings combination available, all of the same piece of cloth. Perhaps it has the advantages of both of the alternatives.

 

[TxRad]

I've always been a fan of thigh high stockings with the fancy elastic and lace around the tops.

 

[MrPixel]

... I've seen a video where a woman goes into Home Depot to look for guys. ...

Oh, it happens. A buddy who attends model train shows told me about one show where a quite attractive... dare I say it? ...MILF was casually browsing with her two young sons in tow. She was chatting up a few of the younger men at the various displays. He observed in watching her body language that she was definitely husband shopping.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I can't find the post now, but you called yourself a boomer. Was there actually a "baby boom" in Australia after World War II, or were you just using if a figure of speech? A lot of those American generation tags don't make sense elsewhere. People of that age cohort wouldn't be "boomers" in Portugal, Mexico, etc.

Yes there was, a very big one; but I was born in England, of parents who were teenagers during the war, where the post war baby boom was also significant.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've always been a fan of thigh high stockings with the fancy elastic and lace around the tops.

Those are good too, but so are the other items I mentioned.

 

[stickygirl]

Mortified and vexed have enjoyed an outing in the last few years. Perhaps it clung on in other countries, but I was amused to hear them on a bus.
Talking of overheard bus convos ( that's a conversation to old people ) I heard two local women chatting about their friend who'd recently died. After a pause one of them sighed, "Well death. It's so final isn't it?" The wisdom of buses

 

[Grendelpuppy]

Gay.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Mortified and vexed have enjoyed an outing in the last few years. Perhaps it clung on in other countries, but I was amused to hear them on a bus.
Talking of overheard bus convos ( that's a conversation to old people ) I heard two local women chatting about their friend who'd recently died. After a pause one of them sighed, "Well death. It's so final isn't it?" The wisdom of buses

Ain't that the truth! I've heard some real gems on the bus commute into the city, mostly from teenagers. Out of the mouth of babes!