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BS: Fossilised phrases
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Subject: BS: Fossilised phrases From: MGM·Lion Date: 28 Aug 11 - 05:46 AM Phrases and locutions often become fossilised. Football reporters have talked of 'hitting the woodwork' when a shot rebounds off the goalpost or crossbar for over 100 years; and tv sports commentators still employ the cliché, even though the goals have not been made of wood but of tubular metal for — how long? 50 years? Many people still refer to entering the number when making a phone call as 'dialling', even though digital keyboards have replaced dials on phones for at least the past 30 years. Surely numbers are 'punched' these days, rather than 'dialled'? {Fess up: which do you say? FYI, my recent BT Phone Book still refers to "your dialling needs"!, although 'call' has replaced 'dial' in most instructions!} Any other such pertinacious obsolete linguistic survivals that you have observed? ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 28 Aug 11 - 06:56 AM "Hobson's Choice" - http://walkaboutsverse.webs.com/#54 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Dead Horse Date: 28 Aug 11 - 07:49 AM I still 'Pull the chain' after a visit to the loo. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: JennieG Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:01 AM Someone who goes on and on about a subject is said to be "like a cracked record"....."like a cracked CD" isn't the same! Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: johncharles Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:23 AM I listen to my "wireless" every morning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Aug 11 - 09:33 AM I've still got a chain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: MGM·Lion Date: 28 Aug 11 - 10:50 AM Good responses all, for which thanks ~~ except I can't see where Hobson's Choice, interesting a phrase as it is historically ~~ an antomomasiac eponym-metaphor based on the early C17 Cambridge University carrier's practice in his horse-hiring sideline of only offering any hirer the horse in the nearest stall to the entrance ~~ fits into the subject of the thread, WAV. And 'wireless' perhaps rather a somewhat obsolete synonym of 'radio' than a fossilised survival of a superseded technology: even when digital, radios are still wire-less in that sense, surely? ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 28 Aug 11 - 12:47 PM ..?..from first carriage to first cab off the rank, MtheGM. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Gurney Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:23 PM 'As the crow flies..' Do they really fly like a pigeon? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:36 PM Do millers still feel the ground-grain between finger and thumb, before making adjustments, as in "rule of thumb"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: EBarnacle Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:48 PM Rule if thumb defines the legal width a man could use to beat his wife or child up into the 19th century. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,Paul Burke Date: 28 Aug 11 - 05:11 PM How long is it since you had to spend a penny? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,Allen In Oz Date: 28 Aug 11 - 06:22 PM " Mad as a two bob watch " AD |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Richard Bridge Date: 28 Aug 11 - 07:05 PM "Willy nilly" - the slightly corrupt transliteration of the Latin "volens nolens". "Blighty touch" "Willy" - again from the Latin "Membrum virile" "Mad as a hatter" - how long since top hat makers used mercury? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,Paul Burke Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:02 PM Drive a coach and four through the law... (yawn) The legal profession is full of such anachronisms. A face like the back of a bus... now you won't understand that until you go to a well- stocked transport museum, and actually see the back of a really old bus. Avoid cliches like the plague. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Genie Date: 29 Aug 11 - 02:32 AM How about referring to someone/something as a "carbon copy" of someone/something else? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Genie Date: 29 Aug 11 - 02:39 AM Another couple that we still use, most probably without having a clue as to what they really mean, are: 1. "hoist by his own petard" -- a petard was a small charge used to light the charge that would set off a cannon. If the operator did not get out of the way fast enough after setting the charge, he would be sent into the air by the exposion of his own petard. 2. "hold someone's feet to the fire" -- (I actually cannot bring myself to use this metaphor ever since I discovered its origin/meaning.) During the Inquisition, an oft used means of torture was to literally hold the soles of the accused's bare feet against a flame until they would "confess" in order to get the pain to stop. It was not about making someone follow through on a promise or work hard to accomplish a goal or accept responsibility; it was torture, plain and simple, employed to obtain a pre-ordained response. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 29 Aug 11 - 07:23 AM Golf clubs for long play are still referred to as "woods" despite having been made almost exclusively of various non-wood materials for a number of years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 29 Aug 11 - 09:33 AM 'crank the engine' when engines have not had cranks since the era of the Model T Ford |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 29 Aug 11 - 12:16 PM Televisions no longer use cathode ray tube technology, but they'll probably still be called "boob tubes" for years. Somehow, "boob flatscreen" just doesn't work. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Richard Bridge Date: 29 Aug 11 - 12:37 PM Actually, a petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. The derivation is the same as "peter" - to fart, in French. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 29 Aug 11 - 01:03 PM There are several theories about the origin of "rule of thumb" and I don't think the matter is settled. My favorite theory is the one described in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift, where the narrator describes how the Lilliputians made a shirt for him: "The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck, and another at my midleg, with a strong cord extended, that each held by the end, while the third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more; for by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me exactly." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 30 Aug 11 - 05:25 AM Telephones are no longer fitted with bells, but they still ring. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Fossil Date: 30 Aug 11 - 07:50 AM Music is no longer trapped on analogue wax or vinyl, but some of it is still "groovy", and the musicians are still "in the groove". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Fossil Date: 30 Aug 11 - 07:51 AM And the above post was a prime example of Fossil-ised phraseology! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: MGM·Lion Date: 30 Aug 11 - 08:27 AM "Groove - In the groove" now surely rather out of date slang: when did you last hear anyone say them? Not quite like "dialling" for punching a phone keyboard or "woodwork" for the metal frame of a goal or "carbon copy" for strong resemblance, all of which remain idiomatic but perpetuate defunct concepts. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 30 Aug 11 - 12:44 PM The term "hang up" (to terminate a phone call) probably comes from a time when telephone receivers literally hung from a bracket, like this. A lot of phrases come from the time of sailing ships, such as "to know the ropes," "three sheets to the wind," etc. I've got a booklet-dictionary somewhere that lists dozens of these, but I wouldn't know where to find it now. "A flash in the pan" is a mishap involving a flintlock pistol or musket. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Stringsinger Date: 30 Aug 11 - 01:12 PM Here's a few. "At the end of the day" "Moving forward" "Conspiracy theory" "Point of fact" (British) Check your local mainstream media pundits for more. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 30 Aug 11 - 01:18 PM The term "album," meaning a collection of recorded songs or tunes sold as a unit, has survived right through the era of LPs and CDs, but it previously meant a set of several 78-rpm records. Each record had its own heavy paper sleeve, and the sleeves were bound together along one edge, like the pages of a book, and the whole thing had a cover, like a book—or an album. People still speak of "sleeve notes" although CDs usually don't have paper sleeves. Today, when part of a song is repeated, we call it a "chorus," even when only one person sings it, but in old sheet music, you often see that the verse is arranged for one voice while the "chorus" is arranged for several voices singing in harmony. This fits with the older meaning of chorus: a choir. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Mrrzy Date: 30 Aug 11 - 05:29 PM Yes, I wonder what would better serve email than cc for carbon copy - how about just c, for copy? I still use album for record. I mean, for CD. Or whatever. I use Record, too, apparently... And I had another one in mind when I opened the thread, but it's gone now... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: dick greenhaus Date: 30 Aug 11 - 05:48 PM In New York, at least they still call 'em ash cans. and "It's your nickel (or dime)". still pops up. I still encounter "hit the bricks" from time to time. "Popular Music" is either fossilized or an oxymoron |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Joe_F Date: 30 Aug 11 - 08:13 PM A similar case is the use of "footage" for video that is recorded on various media that could not possibly be measured in feet. Virtual sprocket holes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: RangerSteve Date: 31 Aug 11 - 06:01 PM People still dial phone numbers, although the dial is obsolete. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST Date: 31 Aug 11 - 07:45 PM People still dial phone numbers, although the dial is obsolete. Indeed, though some weeks ago I was trying to download a major software update at a store in a Designer Outlet centre near York (UK). They had a broadband client installed, but it connected and immediately disconnected. I hooked a phone to the DSL splitter, dialled my home telephone number and heard the unmistakable "whirr, click, click, click" of a rotary telephone exchange. I suggested the store owner went next door but one to the British Telecom outlet and pounded the counter until BT made their line compatible with all the goodies they had sold the store. As an aside, in 1983 when there were still plenty of dial-up telephones around, we used to play a nasty joke on the parents of a friend whose home telephone number ended in 7777. "Hello! No, Mr. Kingston, you don't know me but my finger's stuck in the dial!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Mrrzy Date: 31 Aug 11 - 10:33 PM And I think you can still "drop a dime" on somebody when you tattle, but phones haven't cost a dime in a long time and besides, there pretty much aren't any phone booths left. Wonder where Clark Kent changes these days... "Feather in your cap" also - I wear hats but not too many other people do. I like rotary phones. I wish I could find a phone that still rings, too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 01 Sep 11 - 12:34 AM All is not lost. You can download a "ring tone" that sounds like an old-fashioned phone ringing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 01 Sep 11 - 04:50 AM CC does not stand for carbon copy. It is one of those things like pp for pages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Sep 11 - 03:14 PM cc used to stand for carbon copy, back when they had them. It was what you typed, on a typewriter, to show for whom you were making copies, and then the people getting the carbon copies didn't wonder why they were reading something addressed to someone else. So it still does in the mind of everyone old enough to have known it when it meant that. It's probably pronounced see-see now, so younger people don't realize the connection. Also, my kid said someone "called it in all year" and I thought, I bet they email it in nowadays, those journalists who don't actually GO to the races or the opera or the riot or the council meetings or whatever. I hadn't heard that phrase since I was a little'n, dad was a newspaper reporter back in the day. Before I was born but he liked some of the phraseology. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,Michael Date: 01 Sep 11 - 04:28 PM Ah, carbon copies, yellow, blue, green 'flimsies', like sheets of tissue paper, and the further down the pile you were the fainter they were! Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Michael Date: 01 Sep 11 - 04:30 PM A guest in my own home?, bring your own cookies. Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 01 Sep 11 - 09:43 PM Why is the graphite in a pencil called "lead"? Did pencils once actually contain lead? If so, that could be an example of a fossilization. But I really have no idea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Sep 11 - 09:46 PM Yes, they were. Good thought... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,CrazyEddie Date: 02 Sep 11 - 04:43 AM "Ah, carbon copies, yellow, blue, green 'flimsies', like sheets of tissue paper, and the further down the pile you were the fainter they were!" No, that was the scientific marvel that was known as <"no carbon required" paper> the replaced carbon copies. Carbon paper had an oily-feeling coating on one side. You put it between 2 sheets of normal paper, wrote (or typed) on the top sheet, and the carbon coaring made a copy on the lower sheet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Michael Date: 02 Sep 11 - 05:18 AM True Eddie, but even with carbon paper, the further down the pile, the less pressure on the carbon and thus fainter copies. By the bye I still occasionally use a receipt book with 'proper'carbon paper in. Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,Arnie Date: 02 Sep 11 - 05:29 AM 'Happy as a sandboy' is one of my favourite phrases. I've looked this one up in the past and the explanation appeals to me! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Jim Dixon Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:10 AM Never heard of "happy as a sandboy." Never heard of "sandboy." OK, I just found out that a sandboy is a boy who sold sand, which I assume is an obsolete occupation. But why should a sandboy be happier than most? We have a similar expression "happy as a clam" which always seemed rather surreal to me. Why should anyone think a clam is happy? But I just discovered that the original expression was "happy as a clam at high tide." Now that makes sense. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Michael Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:36 AM Well Jim, "Who liveth so merry in all this land As doth the poor widdow that selleth the sand? And ever she singeth as I can guesse, Will you buy any sand, any sand, mistress?" So there must have been some pleasure that we wot not of in the occupation. Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: GUEST,raredance Date: 02 Sep 11 - 11:30 AM "in the groove" is still heard frequently in baseball referring either to a batter on a hitting streak or a pitcher throwing a lot of strikes. I had been under the impression (misinformed?) that "cc" formerly carbon copy now referred to a courtesy copy which is public as compared to a blind copy (bc) which is not. "at the end of the day" is perhaps more overused than fossilized. I still have one most every day. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 02 Sep 11 - 12:42 PM US But I don't blame them. Think about it from a songwriter's standpoint. A line about a fifth of Jack Daniels is way more poetic than one about 750 ml of Jack Daniels. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases From: fat B****rd Date: 02 Sep 11 - 03:11 PM Are pigs really happy in shit? |
