What Old-Fashioned Words do you Rarely Hear Anymore?

[Diznotyzed]

I consider a "highball" a mixed drink (alcohol & a mixer like soda water, ginger ale, coke, etc) served in a short "highball" glass. Your mom's wine highballs would be like what we call a wine spritzer today. A rum and coke or a scotch and soda are both highballs. A highball is stirred or maybe just allowed to mix with the addition of the mixer.

A cocktail is something that is shaken like a martini or a cosmo and always has "hard" liquor in it. Of course, a "cocktail" is also a generic term for any alcohol drink . Cheers!

I'm still stumped on old fashioned words to add to the thread, but I love the word "davenport". My grandma used to use it.

This made me giggle because after all the talk about alcoholic drinks I was thinking of "old fashioneds" which is another term like highball that also is the name of the appropriate sized glass to serve it in.

Once again the DIS has made me feel hopelessly old, as I use a lot of these terms still. My daughters are grossed out when I say "panties", although I do believe the underwear manufacturers still consider that a correct term. Do people still say "grossed out"?

 

[Magic Mom]

oleo for margarine
petal pushers - capries

I always thought it was pedal pushers as in pants you wear to ride bicycles. I still hear that term sometimes.

 

[LBAK]

I sit on my stoop holding my pocketbook while I wait for my pie to be delivered

 

[Diznygrl]

I always thought it was pedal pushers as in pants you wear to ride bicycles. I still hear that term sometimes.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's pedal.

My mom calls them pedal pushers. The first time I heard her say that I looked at her like she had two heads, LOL. Now that they've become in style again she tries to call them "capris" but can never remember the word. I don't even know what they were called when I was a kid (80s-90s) because nobody really wore them much.

 

[tvguy]

Babo for Comet Cleanser

Must be a regional thing, I Googled Babo and see it's a brand of cleaner I've never seen.

I've heard it referred to as "Dutch Cleanser" though, some of my older home improvement books use that term.

 

[Liberty Belle]

If we are going to add old fashioned sayings then those I have...it usually gets me looks from the kids as if I should be committed or something.

"Possum run over your grave" -- it's when you get that chill down the back of your spine and you shiver -- hopefully you all know what I'm talking about or you might think I need to be committed too.

There was a saying I used all the time and my 13 year old asked me "what's a ___?" that was part of the saying and I had NO IDEA, it was just a saying we used & I can not think of it now...I'm going to have to rack my brain.

My mom always adds "Good Lord willing and the creeks don't rise" when saying something in the future...for example, "we will be going to Disney next year Good Lord willing and the creeks don't rise."

We always said a shiver meant "someone" walked over your grave.

I read a thing not too long ago about the "God/Lord willing and the Creek don't rise" saying. Many people think it means "If God is willing it to happen and if the creek's water doesn't rise too high to get across," but apparently it means this (taken from www.wiktionary.com):

The remark was first said by Benjamin Hawkins, q.v., and the phrase should be correctly written as 'God willing and the Creek don't rise'. Hawkins, college-educated and a well-written man would never have made a grammatical error, so the capitalization of Creek is the only way the phrase could make sense. He wrote it in response to a request from the President to return to our Nation's Capital and the reference is not to a creek, but The Creek Indian Nation. If the Creek "rose", Hawkins would have to be present to quell the rebellion.

 

[JessicaR]

sublunary
shenanigans
hankering
druthers
flummoxed
lolly-gag
floozy
harlot
my grandma used to say, "stop being a pill"

I'll think of more love those that are already posted!

 

[JessicaR]

I sit on my stoop holding my pocketbook while I wait for my pie to be delivered

Me too! Well done extra sauce...

 

[damo]

"a cup of coffee"

 

[Tinijocaro]

shenanigans
hankering
lolly-gag

I use the above on a regular basis, plus, I like to call my dd and her friends brazen hussies, when they have too much makeup on or are showing too much skin.

 

[LBAK]

I sit on my stoop holding my pocketbook while I wait for my pie to be delivered

 

[bored]

Personal Responsibility! Rarely hear it anymore.

 

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Personal Responsibility! Rarely hear it anymore.

right along with "common sense"

not heard of, or seen.

 

[Diznotyzed]

right along with "common sense"

not heard of, or seen.

or common

 

[Pig Pen]

My grandfather was French-Canadian and called the refrigerator the "fridgidaire." My DH's grandparents had a "davenport." They were from Ohio. They also had billfolds, bed clothes, deep freeze and a front room.

 

[ChristmasElf]

I never hear anyone call a couch a davenport anymore, do you?



What other words are old-fashioned sounding that you just don't hear much anymore, or at all?

"I'll do the dishes Mom"

My Grandmother used to call the couch a davenport.

 

[indimom]

console tv
candy cigarettes
rural route (this is how our address was posted in the country years ago)
party line
trivit
snapper (lawn mower)
parachute pants (really jumping decades here)


Did anyone else have to go outside when it was 20 degrees to turn the tv antenna by hand??? We felt sooo advanced when we got the little box (was it called an antenna rotor??) that let you adjust it from in the house!

 

[Poohbear123]

"Great Scott" and "Raining like Cats and Dogs" outside are 2 that come to mind.

 

[trip]

How about:

Whippersnapper

Hoity toidy

 

[goofyernmost]

A high ball is really any type of simple cocktail. I think it mainly refers to whiskey rather than vodka or gin. Seagrams 7 & 7Up, Scotch and club soda, Canadian Club and ginger ale, etc.

Yep, the term was very popular in the 50s and 60s.

Nightcap is that one last drink before going to sleep.

Jim

That is another word that you don't hear often. I never understood how it got that name and as a kid it always sounded vaguely "dirty".

I always thought it was pedal pushers as in pants you wear to ride bicycles. I still hear that term sometimes.

I'm not absolutely sure about this but it makes sense that they be called that. In the "early" days bicycles didn't have chain guards (we have come full circle and they don't once again). That style was shorter and higher up on the leg and also tight to the leg so it wouldn't catch in the chain as you pushed down on the pedals.