Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
My mother would say, "That went over like a fart in church."
Which brings to mind another expression that I once read in a book: "We were as conspicuous as two turds in a punch bowl."
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I've heard the "turd in the punchbowl" phrase before, too.
I've also heard people say, "That went over like a lead balloon."
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Second-hand store" - today's thrift shops only many decades ago they were owned and run by private individuals, not charities.
Sometimes they were called "
junk stores". Not sure where they got their merchandise but most likely from people who sold it to them privately or who were throwing it away. Neighborhood "yard sales" were unknown way back them.
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Shopping center" - the first malls began commonly appearing after WWII and were called "shopping centers". Today we would call them "strip malls". "
Downtown" was where you went for most of your non-grocery shopping (if you lived in a larger city, as I did). Larger malls began appearing in subsequent years, taking away business from "
downtown".
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Emporium" - a good sized store that sold a variety of different kinds of merchandise.
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Variety store" - the "5 and dime".
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Mercantile" - pretty much synonymous with "emporium"
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Department store" - big stores like Sears and Montgomery Wards that had many departments and sold different kinds of merchandise--clothing, appliances, hardware, etc. I think this term might still be used but not as commonly as it once was.
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General store" - My grandfather had a "general store" about a hundred years ago. I have pictures of it. Not sure what all he sold but I think a good part of his business was geared toward horses and buggies.
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Dirty movies" - porn. We didn't use the word "pornography" much before WWII. Those movies were also called "
smut movies", "
filthy movies" or, euphemistically, "
men's movies". These terms applied to photographs or drawings, too.
Pictures and posters of beautiful women in sexy poses were called "
pin-ups" or a "
pin-up poster". Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth were the most popular "
pin-ups" of WWII. Marilyn Monroe's image graced many a locker in the Vietnam War.
George Petty and Alberto Vargas were two artists who painted pictures of beautiful and sexy women that appeared in men's magazine such as "True" and "Esquire". They were called either a "
Petty girl" or a "
Vargas girl". These images can still be found on the internet.
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