I received an email about old time words that we hear rarely if at all these days. I became nostalgic and so here it is with some additions and subtractions - in other words , heavily edited.... but perhaps it will spark some discussion!
Please excuse typos. I am recovering from (would you believe) Carpal Tunnel in right hand which is reason I haven't been posting in a great while.
So - here we go : I came across "fender skirts" - a term I hadn't read or heard in a long time There are other words and phrases that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a whimper.
Words/phrases like : "steering knobs" and "Continental kits." And still on subject of automobiles - when did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?" At some oint "parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with "emergency brake."
And speaking of drama : Do you remember being able to ride on a car's "running board?"

A phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore - "store-bought." Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days.
And mothers were embarrassed if they had to admit a cake was "store bought" instead of home made! How times do chage.

"Coast to coast" is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement. Now we take the term "world wide" for granted.
On a smaller scale, in the 1950s, "wall-to-wall carpeting" covered hardwood floors. Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall with hardwood floors.

When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?" Imagine - "pregnant" was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company. So we had all that talk about stork visits and "being in a family way" or "expecting."

Apparently "brassiere" is a word no longer in usage. It's just "bra" now. "Unmentionables" probably wouldn't be understood at all. But we still use the word "delicates" - go figure.

In my youth we went to "the pictures" or "the movies'" Some really cool kids called movies "the flicks"
Here's a word I miss - "percolator." That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? "Coffeemaker." Booooring.
Ok, your turn.

When I was a young kid "Sunday clothes" was still in vogue
to describe the best suit or dress ( for guys and gals respectively...just to make it clear, I could see the vultures diving in on that ambiguity ) you wore for church or special occasions. I think the term goes back to "The Gilded Age" (late 1800's) when everyone wanted to be the Vanderbilts or Astors but were too poor to afford more than one set of nice clothes.

how timely--i saw a propeller plane today--remember when that term was used to distinges between them and 'jet engines" --(the first time i traveled to ireland we flew on a 4 engine propeller plane)

and how about 'station to station' (vs Person to person) long distance calls. --they used to have to scheduled and connected by an operator, too, none of this dialed direct stuff!

(when did i get old?)

I think any apparatus for making coffee from grounds is technically a percolator, so you can still call any boring old coffee maker that.

To keep to the thread, In New York, people are forgetting the names of the individual subway lines, the IND, BMT, and IRT.

Quote:

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I think any apparatus for making coffee from grounds is technically a percolator, so you can still call any boring old coffee maker that.

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Percolator is just the kind that has the grounds basket sitting on top of that hollow tube that the boiling water comes bubbling up through. Read all about it.