The New Joke Thread

[Therapy]

I know and still use some of the old words and sayings.
Let’s take a brief trip down memory lane, where I know each of you geezers will
recognize all, or almost all, of these great old phrases and figures of speech.

Would you recognize the word Murgatroyd? - Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Lost Words from our childhood: Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad
really!

The other day, a not so elderly (65) lady said something to her son about
driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said what the heck is
a jalopy? OMG (new phrase!) - he had 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.

What follows is by Richard Lederer (unknown to me).

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become
obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases
included "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!/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 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/Heavens to Murgatroyd!

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter
has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! We of a certain age have
been blessed to live in changeful 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.

See ya later, alligator!