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If it weren't so hot out right now I'd open the screen door. It lets the air in but keeps the bugs out. What else could you call it? I went to an ice cream shop the other day that had a real old fashioned screen door, the kind that went Bang! when it closed.
In the northern parts of this country people use window fans all the time. Ceiling fans too. We put air conditioners in the windows in summer, mostly if the room faces south and gets hot. But we use window fans a lot.
Rag top--I've only hear that in England--for a convertible car.
Stove Up --My dad would say "I'm stove up". I always took it to mean he was stiff and
sore but not sure if that is what it meant.
Screen door
Dash pocket for glove compartment
Funeral parlor
Dish rag
Wash rag
Mash the button
Rag top for convertible cars. Not sure what they are called now.
I still use the ones I 've bolded. I am not sure what else you would call a window fan. Is there another name for it? Same thing with screen door. What else is it called?
I guess a picture window is a bay window, a funeral parlor is a funeral home, and most people say dishcloth or washcloth now.
I am thinking there aren't that many screen doors around any more but am probably mistaken. Also I hear funeral parlors called funeral homes now. It may just be a regional thing. My dad always called the box fans a "window fan" and sunglasses "shades" and he used "hair tonic".
LOL. I have a screen door on my front door. I think most people have them. Maybe it is regional (I am in NJ) where we have times of year that we just want the fresh air to blow through.
I think "box fan" is a more recent name. I didn't think of that when I wrote my first response. I still call it a window fan.
An oddity I noticed--not something a parent said but that neighbors who grew up in the south said: "Cut the light" for "Turn off the light". Or "Cut the TV on".
My late brother, who was an electrician, became very annoyed if people said "Close the light" for turning the light off. It's the opposite. When you turn the light OFF, you OPEN the circuit, and you close the circuit to turn the light ON.
Only a few decades ago, nursing homes were often called "convalescent homes". Nursing assistants were called "nurses' aides" and a male employee in that same category was called an "orderly". In most states the first level nursing assistants must have some training and after successfully passing the state approved exams they are now called "certified nursing assistants" or "CNA's".
"Dish pan hands". LOL. Every housewife had them. We didn't have latex household gloves in those days.
Last edited by Cunucu Beach; 08-07-2012 at 06:25 AM..
I am asking about words or terms that your grandparents said that aren't used any more. I'm not talking about pre-1950s slang, just generic words.
I am 50 years old, so my grandparents and their siblings were born in the 1890s. My father's mother always used the word "grip" for "luggage" and my mother's mother always used the term "filling station" for "gas station." What words do you remember your family's older generations saying that you don't hear any more?
Super cute thread idea.
I suppose mine aren't things grandparents would say as much as things Greek grandparents would say:
My yiayia would say her "golo" was getting too big (her hiney lol).
When something was a mess, she'd say it was the "Wreck of the Hesperus".
She would always give me money and say "every little girl needs pin money". I reminded her that we don't wear pins any more, but she still insisted I take the money for "stockings".
And, yes, of course, every song she liked was the "hasapiko".
I suppose mine aren't things grandparents would say as much as things Greek grandparents would say:
My yiayia would say her "golo" was getting too big (her hiney lol).
When something was a mess, she'd say it was the "Wreck of the Hesperus".
She would always give me money and say "every little girl needs pin money". I reminded her that we don't wear pins any more, but she still insisted I take the money for "stockings".
And, yes, of course, every song she liked was the "hasapiko".
Those were the days.
My mother always said "hiney", too. I think that may have been a shortened form of "hind end". When we gals started getting breasts, she called them "nannies".
pocketbook
"Decoration Day" instead of Memorial Day
91 year old who called black people "colored people" till the day she died in 2010
icebox for refrigerator
dinner for lunch
supper for dinner
reckon
someone overweight was "big as a barn"
"it don't make me no nevermind" instead of "I don't care"
we always called the living room the "front room" when I was a kid, which I am sure is the result of what one or both of my parents grew up calling it
housecoats/dusters - which I don't think people even wear anymore
house shoes
washrag - and I still say this
wash powder
wristwatch instead of watch
nightgown instead of gown
cookstove
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I think that may have been a shortened form of "hind end". When we gals started getting breasts, she called them "nannies".
