New generation versus older slang

Gilroy Cullen · Apr 26, 2013

My customer relations professor brought up an interesting point that I found relevant to writers and wanted to see how the discussion panned out.

The present generation has never lived with out a computer. They really haven't seen a phone booth. (Doctor Who must be a fun question about what the Tardis is based on.

)

The phrase "drop a dime on him" used to come from being a narc or snitch, because a pay phone call used to cost $0.10US. Modern generations don't get the idiom because they never had the joys of pay phones, per se.

So what other phrases exist that different generations might know but newer generations don't understand the reference.

mccardey · Apr 26, 2013

I'm gonna love this thread

"That and a nickel will buy me a cup of coffee" was an incredibly cool thing to say in the 70s (okay *sigh* in Australia, where we didn't use nickels...)

But (I think like the original post) it's not the New Generation so much as three or four generations ago....

Phaeal · Apr 26, 2013

No biggie. Just update 'em. As in, "That and $5.99 will buy me a venti caramel macchiato, iced, soy whip, extra drizzle."

mccardey · Apr 26, 2013

Phaeal said:
No biggie. Just update 'em. As in, "That and $5.99 will buy me a venti caramel macchiato, iced, soy whip, extra drizzle."

ok but - not nearly as cool.

slhuang · Apr 26, 2013

How about the fact that we still talk about "hanging up" phones? Oh, and we still "dial" them as well.

Speaking of "dial" -- "Don't touch that dial!"

A "Kodak moment?"

And we still talk about "films" and "filming" things, even though many of those movies are shot on digital cameras now rather than film cameras (not all, though; that's still in transition).

LindaJeanne · Apr 26, 2013

"You sound like a broken record."

"Best thing since sliced bread" (How long has it been since pre-sliced bread has been considered notable? And bread-snobs would never buy their bread pre-sliced).

~~From the beginning of Snow Crash~~ (edited -- yeah, I'm an idiot ) "The sky was the color of a television not turned to any station." -- No, kids, he didn't mean the sky was a bight, clear, cloudless blue.

Clockwise and Counterclockwise.

Bands still release albums. (Actually, in some genres, including a vinyl release is still common, but the term "album" continues to be used even when a release is mp3-only.)

While many keyboards have renamed it the "Enter" key, some still call it the "Return" key.

The CC on e-mails originally stood for "Carbon Copy", but it seems to have morphed into an abbreviation for "Courtesy Copy" -- since fewer and fewer people using e-mail have ever seen an actual carbon-copy.

We call electricity "juice", as though it were a liquid fuel.

The medical term "stroke" is derived from "elf-stroke", which came from a time when it was believed that the malady was caused by the Good Folk.

Similarly, "lunatic", from when the moon was blamed for madness.

On the same note of "dialing" and "hanging up" a phone, "giving someone a ring" is similarly outdated, because how many people have their phone "ring"-tone set to a bell ringing?

Kylabelle · Apr 26, 2013

I wrote a fantasy story that turns on the hidden and secret plotting of a group of answering machines. Haven't looked at the story recently to see if I can restructure it but at this point, well, answering machines?

Xelebes · Apr 26, 2013

slhuang said:
Speaking of "dial" -- "Don't touch that dial!"

The phrase now means "don't turn down the volume." It's a sampled phrase in hiphop and rave (techno, gabber.)

LindaJeanne · Apr 26, 2013

For an inverse example, it's hard to believe that the short story The Machine Stops was written in 1909, well before the invention of the computer or the internet.

kuwisdelu · Apr 26, 2013

slhuang said:
How about the fact that we still talk about "hanging up" phones? Oh, and we still "dial" them as well.

I haven't heard many young people use the term "dial" for calling someone.

LindaJeanne said:
"You sound like a broken record."

But lots of hipsters still buy records.

From the beginning of Snow Crash "The sky was the color of a television not turned to any station." -- No, kids, he didn't mean the sky was a bight, clear, cloudless blue.

I haven't read that one. Did Neal Stephenson really rip off William Gibson that blatantly?

Clockwise and Counterclockwise.

There are lots of digital clock face styles that still emulate analog clocks.

Bands still release albums. (Actually, in some genres, including a vinyl release is still common, but the term "album" continues to be used even when a release is mp3-only.)

What else would you call them? I don't see why "album" implies vinyl?

An album was still an album when it was cassette, too, right?

I thought it just refers to a collection of something?

While many keyboards have renamed it the "Enter" key, some still call it the "Return" key.

"Enter" and "Return" are actually separate keyboard commands. They're often conflated and OS's cope by having them function the same way.

Look into how the ends of lines are still encoded in ASCII and Unicode. You've still got line feeds and carriage returns encoded as separate characters.

LindaJeanne · Apr 26, 2013

kuwisdelu said:
I haven't read that one. Did Neal Stephenson really rip off William Gibson that blatantly?

D'oh!!!

That's what I get for posting "really quick while I'm at work". :tongue

kuwisdelu said:
"Enter" and "Return" are actually separate keyboard commands. They're often conflated and OS's cope by having them function the same way.

Look into how the ends of lines are still encoded in ASCII and Unicode. You've still got line feeds and carriage returns encoded as separate characters.

Yes, I know this. But a carriage return refers to a typewriter.

kuwisdelu said:
But lots of hipsters still buy records.

Metal as well. Hence my comment about " in some genres, including a vinyl release is still common".

kuwisdelu said:
What else would you call them? I don't see why "album" implies vinyl?

An album was still an album when it was cassette, too, right?

Back when I was a kid, while "Album" was often used inclusively, (vinyl, cassette, and those new-fangled CD things that were just coming out -- and are only so expensive because they are new, and we'll bring down the price once they are more established. Um, yeah).

But it was often also used to differentiate the cassette vs the album vs the CD. So there was a time when "album" did imply the vinyl.

asroc · Apr 26, 2013

I kind of resent the idea that just because someone is young they don't know what any of these things are. I'm in my twenties and while I have my computer, my smartphone and my digital music, I know what a phone booth is, I know what a record is and I've never met anyone, my age or younger, who was confused by analog clocks. Just because something is no longer in general use doesn't mean it immediately slips into oblivion.

LindaJeanne · Apr 26, 2013

asroc said:
I kind of resent the idea that just because someone is young they don't know what any of these things are.

Some of my examples pre-date me, but I know what they mean. So, it's not really saying that someone younger doesn't know what it's about. Just that it's not as intuitive, except as pure idiom.

I remember when digital clocks were pretty dang new, and everyone thought my generation wouldn't be able to tell time on a real clock. Or tie our shoelaces, thanks to velcro.

Buffysquirrel · Apr 26, 2013

We still have phone booths in this country. Admittedly, they aren't red any more, but that change happened before the mobile phone. But you can phone and even text from them, I believe, though I've never tried the texting thing.

cornflake · Apr 26, 2013

We still have phone booths here, just btw. They're not as ubiquitous as they once were, nor are they generally the full, giant things with the doors, but they do still exist.

Clockwise and Counterclockwise.

There are clocks everywhere - I don't get this one at all. I know first graders have clock face worksheets for homework, to practice telling time.

That said 'my phone has been ringing off the hook,' heh.

Also 'roll down the window' - while I know there still exist and people still drive cars with crank windows, the gesture (making a little spinning gesture at the window) and saying seem kind of weirdly ubiquitous given what I'd guess the percentages are for power windows.

Alpha Echo · Apr 26, 2013

cornflake said:
We still have phone booths here, just btw. They're not as ubiquitous as they once were, nor are they generally the full, giant things with the doors, but they do still exist.

I don't think I've ever seen a real live phone booth. The pay phones...we still have a couple, but the service to any I've seen in awhile has been cut.

cornflake said:
There are clocks everywhere - I don't get this one at all. I know first graders have clock face worksheets for homework, to practice telling time.

Yeah, my daughter was just doing this the other day, actually.

cornflake said:
That said 'my phone has been ringing off the hook,' heh.

Also 'roll down the window' - while I know there still exist and people still drive cars with crank windows, the gesture (making a little spinning gesture at the window) and saying seem kind of weirdly ubiquitous given what I'd guess the percentages are for power windows.

Yeah, I still hear both. My husband actually does have a work truck with the bare essentials, including roll down windows. So they are still out there, believe it or not. And no, it's not a 20-year old truck. LOL. I forget how old it is, but it's no older than 10 years.

People don't really have flip phones anymore, so "flipping my phone shut" is pretty much over and done with already.

Even pressing "send" is going out with more and more phones having a touch screen. And even if you do still press a button, it's no longer a button that says "send" but rather, usually, a green phone. Then a red phone to end the call.

You don't "hang up" anymore either. You press "end" (or the red phone)

I don't think my daughter will never know what a dial tone is.

Or what it's like to not have wireless.

But that's not slang, is it? Hmmmm...

kuwisdelu · Apr 26, 2013

LindaJeanne said:
But it was often also used to differentiate the cassette vs the album vs the CD. So there was a time when "album" did imply the vinyl.

But then what was the equivalent of the term "album", in terms of "collection of songs"?

eyeblink · Apr 26, 2013

kuwisdelu said:
But then what was the equivalent of the term "album", in terms of "collection of songs"?

I do remember when they were called LPs, as in "long-playing records". That said, cassettes had two sides as well, but CDs only have one unless the album is 80 minutes or more.

Okay, vinyl is still around - and increasing in sales recently, but another vinyl-related word is "flipside", referring to the B-side of a 45rpm single.

LJD · Apr 26, 2013

Well, there are a bunch of sayings with "penny" in them, and we just got rid of the penny in Canada...but I think everyone will still understand those.

"Dot your i's and cross your t's" does seem a touch old-fashioned, given how much we type. But again, not a phrase I see people having trouble with.

dangerousbill · Apr 26, 2013

LJD said:
"Dot your i's and cross your t's" does seem a touch old-fashioned, given how much we type. But again, not a phrase I see people having trouble with.

While other expressions that seems to have simple explanations, turn out to have tangled, mind-boggling etymologies.

Frex, "Mind your P's and Q's."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_Ps_and_Qs

Mr Flibble · Apr 26, 2013

Lots of phrases that are in current use are actually pretty old. Many British ones came from our sea-going days*, and we haven't exactly got that so much any more. Just because they make no literal sense any more (or not unless you know the origin), doesn't stop people using them. Actually, even when they're current a lot make little to no sense...

*By and large, shake a leg, three sheets to the wind, the bitter end, in the offing, hard and fast, chock-a-block...

Xelebes · Apr 26, 2013

"Don't jump on the chesterfield!"

"Straw's cheaper!"

BetteDavis · Apr 26, 2013

cornflake said:
We still have phone booths here, just btw. They're not as ubiquitous as they once were, nor are they generally the full, giant things with the doors, but they do still exist.

Anytime in the last three years I've used a phone box(with doors) they've been either broken or reeked of piss.I'll be glad to see the back of them.

Siri Kirpal · Apr 26, 2013

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

"You're cooking with gas!"
sounded like fingernails on a blackboard (and the word blackboard itself)

I, for one, am grateful that pay phones still exist at airports.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

BenPanced · Apr 26, 2013

kuwisdelu said:
But then what was the equivalent of the term "album", in terms of "collection of songs"?

They're called albums because they were originally stored that way. I used to have a first edition of the original Broadway cast recording of Oklahoma! There were, for the sake of argument, 14 songs, two on each Gramophone disk. The seven disks were stored in paper sleeves held in an album. Hence, "record albums".

New generation versus older slang

Handsome servant of a redhead

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

Inappropriately math-oriented.

On a small world west of wonder

unaccounted for

Delerium ex Ennui

On a small world west of wonder

Revolutionize the World

On a small world west of wonder

Alex

On a small world west of wonder

practical experience, FTW

I should be writing.

Revolutionize the World

Barbara says hi

Retired Illuminatus

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Delerium ex Ennui

Swan in Process

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)