The Sunday Post: A Lost Lexicon of England
![Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds_2[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds_21.png)
Arising out of an email exchange around a couple of months ago, this first ‘collaborative piece’ between our esteemed albeit semi-retired landlady and her heir lists 100 misplaced words. They’re in no particular order and are either ones you either don’t hear at all or you don’t hear so much these days. Simple. Here goes…
1) Girdle. 2) Tap Room. 3) Tallyman. 4) Girlie Magazine. 5) Lounge Lizard. 6) VHS. 7) Wino. 8) Importuning.
9) Bouffant. 10) Babycham. 11) Adult Cinema. 12) Hula Hoop. 13) Premium Bonds. 14) Gannex Mac.
15) French Letter. 16) Shop-steward. 17) Ladylike. 18) Postal Order. 19) Alsatian. 20) Courting.
21) Washing Dolly. 22) Philanderer. 23) Boy’s Brigade. 24) Dowry. 25) Catsuit.
26) Liberty Bodice. 27) AA Key. 28) Halfpenny. 29) Cat Burglar. 30) Betrothed. 31) Digital Watch.
32) Trade Test Transmission. 33) Mentally handicapped. 34) Chivalry. 35) Slap and Tickle. 36) Cripple.
37) Satchel. 38) Paramour. 39) Go-Go Dancer. 40) Snuffbox. 41) British Rail. 42) British Leyland 43) Darning Needle. 44) Smoking-Jacket.
45) Common Law Wife/Husband. 46) Common Market. 47) Common Sense. 48) Pipe-cleaner. 49) Alderman. 50) Spinster.
![Babycham-630x640[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Babycham-630x6401.jpg)
![Royal%20FP[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Royal-FP1.jpg)
![mangle[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/mangle1.jpg)
![the-controversial-golly-character-469721547[1]](https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/the-controversial-golly-character-4697215471.jpg)
51) Twin-Set. 52) Waterglass. 53) Assizes. 54) Negro. 55) Polytechnic. 56) Mangle. 57) Hire Purchase. 58) Telegram. 59) Cabaret.
60) Telex. 61) Authoress. 62) Continental Quilt. 63) Job-for-life. 64) Juvenile Delinquent. 65) Typewriter. 66) The Kerb Drill.
67) Confirmed Bachelor. 68) Elocution. 69) The Colonies. 70) Inkwell. 71) Cobbler. 72) Whitsuntide. 73) Factory Fodder.
74) Half-caste. 75) Gay Divorcee. 76) Red Indian. 77) Half-Brother/Sister. 78) Illegitimate. 79) Invisible Mender. 80) Spastic.
81) Battle-axe. 82) Labour Exchange. 83) Colour Television. 84) Stripper. 85) Bicycle Clips. 86) Debutante. 87) Golliwog. 88) Bloomin’.
89) Analogue. 90) Suitor. 91) Deflower. 92) Barber. 93) Call Girl. 94) Sedition. 95) Celibacy. 96) Humility. 97) Consenting Adults.
98) Playboy. 99) Received Pronunciation. 100) Milkman.
There ends our list, though I’m sure you all could bring other words to the table, right?
If not, we shall reconvene next Saturday with the 25 Hour News Review of the Year. Merry Xmas Everybody from all at Anna Raccoon – Anna, Gildas, and Petunia!
Anna Raccoon and Petunia Winegum
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December 21, 2014 at 10:08 am -
I miss the Robertson Golly. I collected several badges of them when I were young. Apparently that makes me a politically incorrect offensive racist. I just thought it was fun.
I had a golly too. I loved him when I was little and even took him to bed with me and teddy. They’re banned now too. Sad isn’t it?
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December 21, 2014 at 9:56 pm -
I saw three for sale in Grassington recently, as seen in this tweet by someone who visited a few days before I went to the Dickensian Christmas Fair. https://twitter.com/HelenJaneGrady/status/541618034818187265/photo/1
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December 21, 2014 at 11:51 pm -
I grew up in Grassington. The gollies might have been part of the set of jazzmen who adorned my sister’s dressing room counter. I don’t know what Dickens had to do with Grassington, though, although Dotheboys Hall was located in an unspecified part of Yorkshire and might have been at nearby Netherside Hall, perhaps.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:03 am -
The Dickensian Christmas Fair in Grassington is a three day event (three Saturdays) when the whole village has a market, with Morris dancers, jazzmen, Punch & Judy show, and other entertainment along with stalls selling food like rabbit pie, kangaroo burgers, hot chestnuts. Other stalls sold gifts and crafts. Interesting that the three days I was there, 99.9% were white visitors, I wonder why. Thousands go to it. Even the Asian stall holders dressed up and got involved in the spirit of the market.
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December 22, 2014 at 10:05 pm -
The kangaroo burgers sound very Dickensian. Brought back by Magwitch from a penal colony, I expect. Hope there
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December 24, 2014 at 2:10 pm -
I wrote about golliwogs a few years ago.
some African-American sisters have inaugurated the Black Doll Collectors Convention.
“Among Britt’s favorite dolls is her collections of golliwogs — the century-old “black-faced” rag dolls that are seen as racially offensive-caricatures to modern day sensibilities.”
But Britt says they created in childhood stories to endear rather than offend.
“They are part of my history and I embrace them. You have to learn from the past. You can’t hide from it,” she says.
http://www.realstreet.co.uk/2011/03/gollygate-2-its-not-childs-play
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December 23, 2014 at 6:50 pm -
Not only do I have a Gollywog apron, but also three unredeemed tokens, pinned to my kitchen board, though I seem to have misplaced my Gollywog Soccer badge – but hang on Premium Bonds are still here, why are they in the list?
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December 21, 2014 at 10:11 am -
..and my father in law used a lot of nigger brown paint. Strange how nobody took offence until it was pointed out by some jobsworth that it was offensive isn’t it?
And heartfelt yuletide felicitations to you all as well…
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December 21, 2014 at 10:21 am -
Cami-knickers. I think they were taken off and left in the back seat of a jalopy. A shaggon perhaps.
RHTs, too.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:28 am -
Have a well-earned rest, you’ve all deserved it.
Also, thanks to all commenters who’ve added to the ambience of this blog.
Additions to the lexicon:
Thruppence, tanner (two thruppences), Health & Efficiency.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:40 am -
Wasn’t tanner slang for a sixpence? I remember all those substitute words for £sd currency, yet was just turned three when we went decimal, so have no memory of what many people still refer to as ‘proper money’, alas.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:46 am -
I started school just before the decimal system was introduced. I learned both systems and whenever I see a bag of crisps priced at 75p I still think “Bloody hell!! That’s fifteen bob for a bag of crisps”. My grandmother would turn in her grave to see such a price.
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December 21, 2014 at 1:55 pm -
Not forgetting the ‘little blue wrap of salt’.
And don’t forget that in those days the only flavour was ‘potato’. Long before ‘cheese + onion’ was invented.
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December 22, 2014 at 10:02 am -
threepence surely?
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December 22, 2014 at 10:18 am -
‘Thru’pence’ – you illiterate Bludger!
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December 22, 2014 at 11:35 am -
Pronounced Thrippence where I was brought up. I never heard thruppence. A friend from somewhere else called it threppence.
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December 23, 2014 at 11:39 am -
Dad always called 50p “ten bob”.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:43 am -
Half a crown, pushbike, mangle, gill (half or quarter pint depending where you come from) Green Shield Stamp – the older you are, the longer the list. Merry Christmas to the Landlady, here staff and all the customers.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:46 am -
HER Staffa! Damn predictive text.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:51 am -
Two attempts and you still got it wrong. You going for the hat trick or are you going to quit while you’re behind?
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December 21, 2014 at 10:53 am -
Trouble at t’quill.
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December 21, 2014 at 12:24 pm -
That.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:52 am -
Mangle is actually in there, but Green Shield Stamp is one I wish I’d thought of! I think prog-era Genesis had a song about ‘The Knights of the Green Shield’ that described how ‘The Knights of the Green Shield stamp’.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:31 am -
There were Pink Stamps too. Probably ahead of their time though, come to think of it….
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December 21, 2014 at 11:41 am -
S & H Pink Stamps if I remember correctly( I believe they were green in other markets). There were also Brooke Bond Dividend Stamps on the tea packets. The CoOp also did trading stamps but theirs were blue!!
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December 21, 2014 at 11:43 am -
Sperry and Hutchison, to be pedantic…
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December 21, 2014 at 11:46 am -
Cigarette coupons (my mum smoked Guards).
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December 21, 2014 at 1:58 pm -
And ‘ciggie’-type collectors cards in boxes of PG Tips.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:51 pm -
December 22, 2014 at 1:00 am -
Digressing slightly perhaps, I’ve got a few of those album collections. Cards also came with the Kelloggs cereals. I have the transport series set somewhere.
And bubblegum came in a flat wrapper with a card. There were footballers and the like, but I particularly remember the ‘Mars Attacks’ and ‘Flags of the World’ series. We kids would quiz each other on the latter’s statistical and linguistic content on the way to school in the bus. Some of it is still etched on my heart today. Who else could remember that the UK was number 26 and Albania no 27 and more besides.
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/bc-gum-cards-flags-world-complete-set-161401999
Kelloggs Frosties packets, I think, also came with a set of miniature pistols and rifles, all done in a very dark blue plastic. Anyone else remember those? Didn’t they also do a series of Land Speed Record cars? I distinctly remember the various generations of Campbell machines
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December 22, 2014 at 2:24 pm -
The guns were made as half-sections so that you could stick them on your collection wall, probably alongside all those animal heads that Kelloggs printed from time to time! I remember the speed record cars too. Kelloggs also included baking powder operated submarines more than once.
I think Kelloggs might also have printed packets with fairground attractions like helter-sketers too. Weetabix would have model lorrys on their packs. Cadbury’s cardboard selection boxes also would have a model of some sort. I have a box with a fruit cart on it but I’m sure there were model puppet theatres too. I’m trying to remember who made packets with theatre dioramas on. Scott’s Porage Oats once had a diorama of Edinburgh castle that you built to go inside the box, at the bottom, while you looked in from the top. you made a widow in the side to light it up from ‘above’. My dad put coloured film on the window but I don’t remember if that was just his idea.
Some of the flour millers sold their product in cloth bags and they were sometimes printed with a glove puppet design that you were supposed to stitch around front through to back then cut out just beyond the stitch line.
Of course these were all made for children who had been brought up to make their own toys. Remember the cotton reel ‘tank’? A bit of elastic a couple of matchsticks and a slice of candle. Or for the girls, four panel pins in one end and you could do endless ‘French’ knitting or corking. Find a packet of ten ciggs on the road? Check for the possibility of a forgotten fag, then pull out the tray, tear off the sides and roll up one to make a barrel. Rip the sleeve into three parts and interleave them to make the turret. refold the tray, (there was even an unused fold just ready for this!) and tuck the ends into the turret. Pop the barrel into a gap in the turret and you had a cardboard tank! -
December 22, 2014 at 5:44 pm -
Jim, I do remember the submarines! Something that had sunk to the depths until just now. They were great fun.
Missed out on the fag packet creations though, as smoking and its related paraphernalia was something that completely bypassed me.
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December 29, 2014 at 2:08 pm -
I seem to remember that Brooke Bond tea came in packets rather than boxes.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:22 pm -
Really?
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December 22, 2014 at 8:06 am -
Remember Embassy Coupons ? I learnt to drive with them.
6,000 coupons got you a dozen lessons at BSM and even included the Test Fee (then only £1 5s.). As a junior ‘Del-Boy’ trader at school (cigs, lighters, condoms, porn, anything else banned), I bought and sold cigarette coupons (Embassy and No.6 mostly), turning all the profit into Embassy Coupons to fund my driving lessons. Took me more than a year to accumulate them but it worked, cost me nothing, got me the license – still using it 47 years later.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:55 am -
I mourn the passing of ‘thrice’ and ‘twice’. Once, Twice, Thrice a lady.
(a teacher at High School once tried telling my son that ‘thrice’ isn’t even a word and it, his sentence, should have read ‘three times’).
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December 21, 2014 at 11:07 am -
Good Lord a teacher spoke to a boy ? ! Ahh, she/he (80% chance of a she) was ‘correcting’ him. Incorrectly of course. Did she mark him down as well?
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December 21, 2014 at 11:14 am -
She, a student teacher, and she reprimanded him for his use of this non-word infront of the class. Doesn’t bode well for the future of pedagogy.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:27 am -
A Pedagogue ? …quick find me some naptha and a flint for my petrol lighter…has Sir Jimmy risen from the dead?
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December 21, 2014 at 11:30 am -
*passes Fat Steve a faggot*…and doesn’t mean a disgusting Geordie skinless sausage or a colonial homosexual *
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December 21, 2014 at 7:10 pm -
Pedant alert.
She may be correct. The original meaning of ‘thrice’ was ‘more than twice’, so maybe three times, or maybe more.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:30 pm -
OK. Any idea where the word ‘trice’ came from? It seems to have been the period of time in which the person who didn’t have to perform a task claimed that he could have performed it, while the person who did have to perform the task invariably took ‘yonks’ to do it. Perhaps a ‘yonk’ was thrice a ‘trice’?
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December 22, 2014 at 11:37 am -
Even “once” may be declining; “one time” is becoming more common.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:19 am -
Add “Tufty Club” to the list.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:22 am -
My negro milkman was only telling me yesterday about the Premium Bonds his common-law wife had bought from the aldermen, an illigitimate confirmed bachelor with a snuff-box in his Gannex mac, or was it his half-caste half-sister, the Red Indian caberet stripper and go-go dancer, deflowered in her twin-set and girdle for the price of a Babycham by a bouffant barber in a smoking-jacket at the bloomin Playboy Club ? Cobblers !
Festive greetings to all fellow bar-hoggers here, with additional special thanks to all the bar-stewards for another year of stimulating service.
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December 21, 2014 at 3:13 pm -
Thanks for brightening up a gloomy Sunday afternoon with that one! Bloody genius!
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December 21, 2014 at 7:26 pm -
Wasn’t there a comedy writer who responded to various prohibitions at the BBC: speech defects, Royalty, religion, race, physical deformities/disabilities etc with a script that began:
“C – C – C – Christ!” said the King to the one-legged wop ….
Anyone remember who it was?
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December 21, 2014 at 8:59 pm -
December 21, 2014 at 10:03 pm -
I suspect it was King George VI …. I’ve seen the movie.
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December 22, 2014 at 12:32 am -
‘P-p-p-pick up a penguin’ is out of fashion too….
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December 22, 2014 at 11:38 am -
Do you remember the prizewinning headline: “Pop-singer priest in sex-change mercy dash to palace”?
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December 21, 2014 at 11:25 am -
No. 57 is a typo for “Hire Purchase” also known in the past as the “Never-Never”.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:29 am -
Quadroon, Octaroon (sound Terry Pratchettish, don’t they), numerous racial, national and sexual slurs, Eskimo.
As for taking off camiknickers, that’s a major exercise. I suggest that they would be simply unbuttonned or pushed aside!
Didn’t you also forget ‘Topless’ as a prefix to ‘Go Go Dancer’?.
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December 21, 2014 at 12:20 pm -
Wearing Hotpants.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:34 am -
Bakelite, Coster Monger, mountebank,”Johnny Chinaman”.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:34 am -
Reminds me of the lovely Richard Digance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxOyS5ivHWU
I said ‘thruppence’ this week and confused one of my students. ‘Whom’ is almost dead; haven’t heard ‘gaiety’ in a while, and was appalled to hear a colleague recently refer to ‘criterias’. What are we coming to?
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December 21, 2014 at 11:41 am -
Hysterias
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December 21, 2014 at 10:35 pm -
I swear that I once saw a comment that included the ‘word’ phenomenas.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:37 pm -
There used to be a pub called the Gaiety at the back of St. James’s Hospital in Leeds.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:38 am -
December 21, 2014 at 11:41 am -
‘DERV’ (for diesel).
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December 21, 2014 at 12:59 pm -
December 21, 2014 at 5:04 pm -
DERV is an acronym for Diesel Engined Road Vehicle I believe, hence not the actual fuel but rather the lorry or van.
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December 21, 2014 at 6:11 pm -
Indeed but it quickly came to mean the fuel itself, thanks to a thousand forecourt signs. Grocer’s English compels.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:43 am -
The gammon steak seems to have fallen off the menu. Halalaven’t seen one for ages.
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December 21, 2014 at 12:23 pm -
Still get ‘em round our way. Might be worth a chat with a good local butcher. They’re delicious with a fried egg (the gammon steaks that is, not the butcher…)
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December 21, 2014 at 3:45 pm -
You haven’t met my butcher!
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December 22, 2014 at 6:57 pm -
I had one a few days ago.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:50 am -
On another forum I was once reprimanded for using the term ‘committing adultery’ instead of, I assume, ‘varying life-partner choices & healthy sexual self empowerment’.
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December 22, 2014 at 6:58 pm -
You can probably add “fornication” to the list.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:50 am -
Twopence which I pronounced as “here’s tuppence”) got me a disapproving look from a young lady a few weeks ago when I gave her 2p to make change.
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December 22, 2014 at 6:59 pm -
Presumably because it still to have some use as a term for lady bits?
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December 23, 2014 at 11:37 pm -
Nah – that was “Keep yer ‘and on yer ha’penny’”
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December 21, 2014 at 11:54 am -
Blue-bag, half-dollar, furniture polish, back-burner, nit-nurse, wash-house, time, gentlemen please, brown and bitter, steamer, travel rug, graph-paper, log-tables, bike-shed, cap-pistol, coal-man, rag ‘n’ bone man, hand signals (as when driving), choke (ditto), no spitting sign, football rattle, divvy (as in Co-Op), gob-stopper, wine-o, Hlversum (and all the other exotic radio stations), tiger or tag, double feature, dross, nutty slack, clippie, never-never, sock garter, fish-net nylons, antimacassar, brilliantine, oil-cloth, drinking fountain, platform ticket, snug (in a pub), dentifrice, spittoon, sou’wester, packamac,
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December 21, 2014 at 12:00 pm -
Just a minute! Repetition is still about.
Sorry, that was sitting there, just begging to be written. LOL
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December 21, 2014 at 12:01 pm -
Without any hesitation, either
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December 21, 2014 at 10:39 pm -
Log tables seem to have collapsed under the weight of slide rules.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:57 am -
And it may be appropriate, especially at this time of year, that MAD, even if maybe still lurking in the shadows, seems to have disappeared from common use.
So, may Peace dwell upon all visiting here and, in particular, the Three Wise Hosts
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December 21, 2014 at 12:20 pm -
florin aka two bob bit, mitherin’ (as in kid whinging for sweets – “will you stop mitherin’”) similarly skrikin’ ( about a crying, nay bawling child – “can you stop that kid skrikin”) I remember in the late 40’s when my Mum’s pride and joy was her Nigger Brown coat – probably the first new coat she had been both able to afford and have enough coupons to get from the Scotch Draper (Talleyman) – or she might have bought it on a Provident Cheque
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December 21, 2014 at 12:45 pm -
Aye. And did you too get visits from ‘The Man from the Pru’?
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December 21, 2014 at 12:57 pm -
Who didn’t?
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December 21, 2014 at 12:21 pm -
Coal, cinders and clinker. Not to mention smuts and smog. You’d be hard pressed to find a drawing board and tee-square these days, too – damned computers! (On which subject – punch-card readers.)
On the other hand, there’s polio, dyptheria and ricketts, which are not quite so lamented. And Arthur Scargill….
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December 21, 2014 at 12:40 pm -
If I may add to your themes….Coal Bunker. Coal sacks, and even coalmen. Baker’s and butcher’s vans and the Onion Johnny on his bike.
And which of today’s children has any idea what a comptometer was?
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December 21, 2014 at 1:27 pm -
We have cinders, clinker, coal men and sacks, though no bunker (but next door has one) or coal as it’s now smokeless fuel (conservation area) to burn in our multi fuel wood burning stove. Plus kindling, firelighters, coal bucket, irons for the fire, ash can, hearth, mantelpiece etc.
What goes around, comes around again and again.
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December 21, 2014 at 1:57 pm -
Nutty slack, anyone?
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December 21, 2014 at 2:08 pm -
” …..hard pressed to find a drawing board and tee-square …” and slide-rule.
And, know how to use the latter.
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December 21, 2014 at 4:00 pm -
the terms ‘plumb’ and ‘true’ also cause raised eyebrows when used on an unsuspecting Estate Agent with a laser measuring thingy.
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December 23, 2014 at 7:44 am -
Oh Gosh reminds me of learning how to learn to use Logarithms tables…..Jesus Christ WOT a waste of time like so much of my education
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December 21, 2014 at 7:22 pm -
Drawing boards and t-squares can be found in most secondary schools. Technical drawing has yet to go the way of Latin. Slide rules and log tables are however items of arcana.
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December 21, 2014 at 12:37 pm -
The English language has become mangled due to political correctness and dumbing down. Disambiguation? Nah, never ‘eard of it Mate!
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December 21, 2014 at 12:43 pm -
This is addictive – Joey or Silver Joey, the old silver thruppeny bit (with a Jenny Wren on the obverse I think) Fag (not a description of someone with non-heterosexual preferences) also Coffin Nail, Mild – as in Pint of, Mixed -as in Pint of (half and half Mild and Bitter) Slide Rule. Ready Reckoner
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December 21, 2014 at 1:52 pm -
Wasn’t it the farthing that had the wren on the ‘tails’ side? Ye Gods, you’ve made me feel old!
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December 21, 2014 at 1:56 pm -
The angular 3d had a portcullis, if I remember
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December 22, 2014 at 11:43 am -
Didn’t they usually have a bunch of thrift?
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December 21, 2014 at 2:34 pm -
I think you’re right – it was a long time ago!
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December 21, 2014 at 3:24 pm -
I just happen to have a set of pre-decimal coins on hand – the little birdie is on the farthing, a ship on the ha’penny, Britannia on the penny, and a portcullis on the threepenny bit.
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December 21, 2014 at 5:33 pm -
The twelve sided portcullis tiddler was preceeded by a lovely little ‘silver’ thrupenny bit. I used to use these on the bus to school way back in the forties. On the back was just the number three and a little D. I still have some but I’m not sure if they are real silver.
As to ‘lost words’ – I’m lost for words as there are so many gone. So sad.
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December 21, 2014 at 12:46 pm -
On the currency front, ‘pound note’ seems to have disappeared too
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December 21, 2014 at 1:01 pm -
Not to forget 10 bob note as well
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December 21, 2014 at 1:02 pm -
…….. and shillings
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December 21, 2014 at 1:32 pm -
Pipe cleaners live! I bought some the other day – for my 6-year old grandson to use for cleaning the narrow bit of his new recorder.
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December 21, 2014 at 2:11 pm -
Presumably, his wasn’t the reel-to-reel type!
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December 21, 2014 at 1:45 pm -
Not long ago I was starting to worry that “Advent Calendar” was going to be universally replaced by “Countdown Calendar” – luckily that seems not to have happened. However, the prevalence of “solutions” to describe almost any product or service continues unabated. Just the other day I saw a prime example: “Hard-wearing exterior solutions” i.e. paint.
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December 21, 2014 at 1:58 pm -
Speaking of which – distemper. Not the dog problem, the wall paint. Though I gather that linseed oil paint is making a bit of a comeback – as someone said above, what goes around…..
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December 21, 2014 at 2:37 pm -
… “distemper” which triggers Snowcem. There’s no end to this!
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December 26, 2014 at 5:14 pm -
The last time I bought distemper I had to get it from Holland. Previously I had still been able to get it from Ireland.
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December 21, 2014 at 5:08 pm -
And paint is not a (chemical) solution, as it’s partly an emulsion or colloid.
Most of the words listed are still very familiar to me, some are even in everyday use (inside my head) – I never realised before how out-of-date I am.
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December 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm -
‘Blue’ for whitening your sheets and shirts.
Nightcaps that you wear, not drink.
Merkins.
Spats.
Deerstalker hats ( I have one)(making a Cumberbach (Sp?) comeback.)-
December 21, 2014 at 3:58 pm -
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December 21, 2014 at 4:40 pm -
Elementary, dear Dwarf.
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December 21, 2014 at 2:04 pm -
Christian name? Surname? Fountain pen.
Things too: white dogshit, starting handles on cars, motorcycle sidecars, proper lightbulbs …
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December 22, 2014 at 9:35 pm -
… cassette tape by the roadside…
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December 21, 2014 at 2:08 pm -
Tap room – remember this from when I lived in Leeds. Nobody appears to use the word harlot anymore.
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December 21, 2014 at 2:14 pm -
‘Penneth of chips, and, scraps.’
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December 21, 2014 at 2:31 pm -
Scraps! Indeed!
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December 21, 2014 at 2:39 pm -
Ah yes indeed – but in Hignetts (best chippie in Chester) you had to be one of the favoured regulars to get ‘em
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December 21, 2014 at 3:57 pm -
“Chippy Loaf” or “Chippy bun” , a staple of my teenage years before I discovered Egg Flied Lice [sic..the Barron Knights having much to answer for!].
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December 21, 2014 at 2:34 pm -
Manners.
Resignation (honourable).
Codpiece.
Halberd.
Gambeson.
Actually, I still have my old black Gambeson, a relic of more vigorous days…-
December 21, 2014 at 4:05 pm -
I admit I had to look up ‘Gambeson’ , it transpires it is sorta like a straight jacket made from an old duvet worn under armour…? Just HOW vigorous were those days and just how many centuries ago?
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December 21, 2014 at 4:43 pm -
More ‘courtly’ Knights wore a silk shift under their ‘best’ armour. It was the original ‘petticoat’.
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December 21, 2014 at 3:04 pm -
56 should be “hire purchase”.
Bob-a-job. Spend a penny. Florin. Hankie. Izal. Vim. Salad cream. Boiled tongue. Pudding. Luncheon. Parker-Bowles.
In the US cobbler is a dessert like apple crumble.
I still have my codpiece.
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December 22, 2014 at 5:49 am -
Please, don’t make me remember Izal.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:09 am -
Izal – just like Bronco, only medicated. Didn’t so much wipe as scrape.
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December 22, 2014 at 1:23 pm -
But was excellent as cheap tracing paper!
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December 22, 2014 at 8:10 pm -
Tracing paper!! Scratchy nibs and inkwells. Osmiroid pens and italics.
God I’m feeling old now.
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December 21, 2014 at 3:32 pm -
That was fun but I’m too cream crackered to sift for omissions. Thank you to Anna, Gildas and Petunia for the year’s hard work and thank you to all my fellow occasional commenters for thought provocations and hilarity. A Happy Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all from the home for the bewildered.
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December 21, 2014 at 3:55 pm -
ParentS- in the plural? You know that whole repressive thing about Mommy & Daddy being your biological parents and even sharing the same bed?
When I was at school in the late 70s/early 80s there was ONE child in our class whose parents got DIVORCED and I can still recall the shock wave that went through the class, how we pitied him (he later went on to become an actor whom you may have seen). When my Kids went to the same school in 2003 they were the only kids in their class whose parents were 1.married and 2. still married and shared a surname.
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December 21, 2014 at 5:11 pm -
That just about sums up the UK’s great socialist experiment – how sad, we have lost so much.
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December 21, 2014 at 7:27 pm -
As a teacher, the veiled threat ‘Do I need to phone your parents?’ has become ‘Do I need to phone whoever cares for you?’ The truth so often is that nobody truly cares for many of our feral youth.
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December 22, 2014 at 7:07 pm -
At the age of 11 in 1977 I was very surprised to be told that both my parents had been married before, and in fact they didn’t get married on the sly until the early 1970s, presumably when we kids were at school one day. They got away with it by virtue of the fact that my mother’s first husband had been my father’s nephew (although he was only a year younger than him), so she already had the same surname. It was like I’d suddenly found myself living in an episode of A Bouquet of Barberd Wire….
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December 21, 2014 at 5:18 pm -
Spotted dick?
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December 21, 2014 at 6:24 pm -
Emery?
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December 22, 2014 at 10:23 am -
You need custard – or a poultice!
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December 21, 2014 at 5:46 pm -
Factory chimneys, Jim Crows up your nose, pea souper. Eider down, coal hammer and shovel. Clothes horse. Spencer. Rubber buttons and button box. Bowler hat. Trilby and my mother’s perfectly innocent nigger brown hat shoes and gloves residing in the hall wardrobe. Stair runners and rods , chilblains. Garters and knicker elastic. Wash tub. Fairy soap and coal tar soap. Petticoats which are now eveningwear for well oiled laydeez. Home service. Third programme. Chip butties. Brown sauce. Regentone and Echo radios. Gym slips and plimsolls and green knickers with pockets.
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December 21, 2014 at 9:09 pm -
I’ll see your gymslips and raise you lisle stockings and a liberty bodice, Ms Mildred – just caught the tail end of those….!
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December 21, 2014 at 9:24 pm -
Ah yes, remembering now that tantalising tranche of bare flesh between the stocking-tops and the nether-garments, known as the ‘giggling strip’ – because once you’d got that far, you were laughing.
Not so much as a titter recently……
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December 22, 2014 at 8:26 pm -
I just missed out on the liberty bodice but had to wear the lisles and gymslip.
I was astonished, the other night to see on TV that a young grown man couldn’t tie his tie. It’s up there with learning to tie your shoelaces. Is it all clip-on and velcro now?
Only half in jest.
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December 21, 2014 at 6:25 pm -
Just to say thanks for all the great posts and to wish you all a happy Christmas and best wishes for 2015 and for Anna, stay well.
Carol -
December 21, 2014 at 7:07 pm -
Dustbin man, emoluments.
I saw fortnight on an A-board recently.
All the lost sweets eg Treets
The concept of lighting-up time is steadily being destroyed by the EUscum. -
December 21, 2014 at 7:31 pm -
May I add O-level, and grammar school? I expect A-level to go before I retire.
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December 21, 2014 at 7:50 pm -
Chip butty – oh I haven’t had one of those in years. The health police have put a stop to it.
I remember the word mardy. Like when I was having a strop and my gran would say I was being ‘right mardy.’
Well, merry chrimbo to you all and hope 2015 holds something good.
xxx
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December 21, 2014 at 8:59 pm -
Paraffin stoves! Sat on one when I was about six and scarred for life. I wonder where I can claim compensation. Anyone else remember scullery? Foolscap paper? There’s really no end, luckily.
Very happy Christmas to all behind and in front of the bar and special wishes for Anne for 2015!
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December 22, 2014 at 7:10 pm -
I do find it a bit odd that foolscap lives on for document wallets and box-files, when you’d be hard-pressed to actually find the paper that size.
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December 21, 2014 at 9:03 pm -
As office junior I had to type stencils and run off copies on the roneo. Anyone remember them?
I still use mithering when I have a lot on my mind. or friends are fussing about something.
We used to ask for chips and batter bits from the chippie and we loved scallops or maybe it was scollops (sliced potato in batter).
Happy Christmas and Peace next year to everyone, especially the Raccoon and her team – cubs? kits? raccoonnettes? (Would call them her apprentice coons but that’s another word non-PC).
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December 21, 2014 at 10:50 pm -
Yep -stencils and a roneo machine, those were the days. Opens up a whole new category of course: carbon paper and hence, carbon copies, pica and elite type faces, quires ( a number of sheets of paper, but I’m damned if I can remember how many) wpm (words per minute – are computer bashers still judged on this measure?) and does anybody take shorthand these days?
Really enjoyed today – what talented folk patronise this fine stablishment. Merry Christmas to all behind the bar and those propping up the bar out front. Peace and success and joy to Anna particularly.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:15 pm -
Oh carbon copies and white corrector fluid…
I have a bee in my bonnet about the email format which is cc. cc means carbon copy. Though I don’t mither about it.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:34 pm -
Forgot to say I don’t take shorthand these days but I can still write it!
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December 22, 2014 at 3:32 am -
“white corrector fluid” – as invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith of The Monkees. Even smarter than that, she sold out for millions just before computers made the stuff virtually extinct.
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December 22, 2014 at 5:47 am -
It’s one of those ”if only moments”. The simple solution sits and stares you in the face and your gaze is elsewhere.
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December 22, 2014 at 12:21 am -
Gestetner, anyone?
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December 22, 2014 at 3:38 am -
Beat me to it!
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December 22, 2014 at 5:20 pm -
You could get woozy with the fumes. Roneo and the ‘e’s filled in, Gestetner you could have colour – but the later copies were faint.
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December 21, 2014 at 9:30 pm -
Didn’t anyone else have a pig bin in their back street?
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December 21, 2014 at 9:41 pm -
Hope I’m not repeating any – Up yonder. ‘alf and ‘alf. Black lead. Blue murder. Skint. Squint. Quaint. Pobbies. Budge up. Spuds. Tatties. Dolly blue. Blue rinse. Rack. Corset. Twin set. Pixie hood. I give up, I’ll get me coat! A very Happy Christmas to one and all, especially to the kind lady hostess and gentlemen hosts.
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December 21, 2014 at 10:31 pm -
I think that black lead for the range & cooker was Zebu or similar in a stripey tin; there was red cardinal for the front step; and no electricity meant gas mantles and an accumulator for the radio, which had an earth & a long wire aerial in the garden. Leather studs for football boots and the white stuff for the gym shoes or pumps; nugget shoe polish. And Coronation spoons; five stones; that purple stuff- gentian violet? 5 o’clock shadow. Decokes.
All sounds like Tinniswood’s Uncle Mort.
If only the short term memory could be as good as the long term.-
December 21, 2014 at 10:54 pm -
Wasn’t that orange stuff on doorsteps applied with a scrubbing brush?
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December 21, 2014 at 11:04 pm -
It was Whitestone and Yellowstone.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:17 pm -
I still have a Coronation Spoon!
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December 21, 2014 at 11:34 pm -
Interesting how many words have gone out of use quite recently. I left England in 1980 and have lived in the US for many years, so have to avoid using many English words that would not be understood, though mostly I speak Spanish these days. At the same time there are many US phrases and colloquialisms that I don’t use as I did not grow up with them and they do not come naturally, so my US English is a bit stilted, though my Spanish less so.
I think if I returned to England, I would seem like those loquacious Indians who use words and idioms that went out of fashion in the UK generations ago.
When I was young my father often used expressions that seemed old-fashioned, for example referring to my grandmother as “a good old stick”, a phrase that I was delighted to recently find that George Orwell had used with reference to his deceased wife some time in the 40’s. Certainly don’t hear that in Florida.
A word that is used a lot here, but hardly ever heard in England any more is “soccer”. When I was a child we certainly spoke of a soccer ball or soccer boots.
I rarely speak to English people these days, but the most common odd (to me) phrases I hear these days are “Oh, right!” and “Get it sorted” and “going to uni” and “gap year” none of which were current when I lived in England prior to 1980 when diet and exercise guru Terry Wogan on Radio Two was conducting the “foight on flab”. How did that work out for you, Terrance?
I listen quite a bit to Radio Four in my car on my smart phone data connections (as one does), and having been away a long time, English pronunciation sometimes seems very odd to me. For example many people now pronounce “years” to rhyme with “furze” instead of rhyming it with “careers”. Oh, well, plus ca change.
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December 22, 2014 at 1:40 am -
How and whyever should/would we Brits prounce years to rhyme with careers?
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December 22, 2014 at 8:35 pm -
I hope I didn’t sound rude there but to me, years does sound like furze. Ears sound like fears. I don’t know any other way to pronounce them.
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December 23, 2014 at 11:55 pm -
Oh no. Another new can of worms. Rhyming ‘house’ with ‘mice’, ‘pounds’ with ‘rinds’ and ‘thousand’ with ‘thigh-zend’ as in “One can buy quite a nice hice arind here for just a few thighzend pinds.”
A local paper once held a competition for phonetic pronunciations in local accents:
Eesezitentiznburraberitiz = He says it doesn’t belong to him but I think it does.
and
Wearworeeanooworeewi? = Where was he and who was he with?-
December 24, 2014 at 5:52 pm -
That too. That pronunciation sounds Northern Irish to me, but now common in South of England.
The pronunciation of years might be a north/south thing.
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December 21, 2014 at 11:46 pm -
Saw a post above here somewhere about jam jar figures found in Grassington. Now I can’t find it. I grew up in Grassington, so those figurines might well be the jazzmen my sister had on her dresser counter. Grassington was a quiet place with only one policeman, but adultery was practiced, especially at the primary school as anyone who was there in the sixties and seventies might recall.
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December 22, 2014 at 12:00 am -
hoyden, mooncalf, rhodomontade, nuncupatory
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December 22, 2014 at 12:37 am -
‘The Muffin Man’ seems to be keeping his head down too, although that was probably always the case. But these days, more likely because some twat would want him prosecuted for his past indulgence
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December 22, 2014 at 8:13 am -
I’m sure that ‘Muffin The Mule’ is illegal nowadays.
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December 23, 2014 at 11:55 pm -
Oswald! Don’t gape.
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December 22, 2014 at 1:17 am -
May I wish you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you all for keeping me entertained and informed this past year.May you hang up your stocking by the chimney breast and receive an orange, a selection box and and a sugar pig from Father Christmas.
Don’t catch your death of cold from standing on the linoleum in your bare feet!Dave
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December 22, 2014 at 3:37 am -
Bubble Gum Cards.
I was just talking about bubble gum cards the other day – trying to convince incredulous friends that there were series of them on the 1970s which included pictures of Nazi war atrocities, the Chinese water torture and one I particularly remember of a soldier being run over by a tank.
Can anyone assure me I don’t have False Memory Syndrome about these cards?-
December 22, 2014 at 9:31 am -
I’m sure your not imagining it. There may have been more modern ones, but here’s one 1930s set that fits the bill
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December 22, 2014 at 7:09 am -
Opal Fruits, Spangles, Aztec bars, Golden Wonder Rock’n Rollers, Creamola Foam, Rowntree’s Tots, sweet cigarettes, ‘Milady’ sweets from Woolworth’s, Woolworth’s itself, Man at C&A, John Collier, John Collier, the window to watch.
Yes, I have lost the majority of my teeth.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:22 am -
Woolworth’s (Woolies) is alive and thriving in Oz.
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December 22, 2014 at 12:41 pm -
Our local Woolworth’s was prone to the letters falling off the side of the building: for a long time the shop appeared to be called “olwort ‘s” and for another time it was “Woo th’s”.
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December 22, 2014 at 11:06 pm -
Woolworth is also in South Africa but its not connected to the US Woolworth.
Their food department makes Marks And Spencers look like Kwik Save!!!!
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December 23, 2014 at 7:53 am -
RSA back in the ’80s, Woolworths did sell some M & S stuff. I recall the frozen turkeys at Christmas at Menlo (Menlyn?) mall, not really right for the summer heat, but you had to do it once. I think on clothes the label was Princess, not St Michael. I could probably find a shirt or two.
It was often like a step back to ’50s Britain then, Koo apricot jam in large cans I recall too.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:39 am -
On the up side, one doesn’t hear “Iron Lung” often nowadays.
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December 22, 2014 at 9:21 am -
“No hawkers” signs, houses named Dunroamin, Jubilee bags which were something and a farthing, back-room boys, “cop” as in see something e.g. copped a streak yesterday (streak being a particular steam loco). Waiting room as pertaining to stations, and porters in the same place. Six and out – do kids play street cricket these days?
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December 22, 2014 at 11:38 am -
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December 22, 2014 at 5:15 pm -
The crowds turned out along the Midland main line last Saturday and many of them would have copped a streak for the first time as A4 pacific locomotive 60009 “Union of South Africa” pulled a special excursion from London to York
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December 22, 2014 at 5:46 pm -
Probably first time some of the Midland folk had ever seen a ‘big engine’ LOL
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December 22, 2014 at 9:51 am -
Rockers (ray), Mods (spit) having a gasper, instead of a fag, pearly kings and queens, though there are still a couple come collecting round Covent Garden, kickstarters on motorbikes, garages that could actually diagnose a problem (three weeks the Jeeps been in the shop, Three. Poxy. Weeks)
Merry Christmas Anna and Petunia and all the contributers too. -
December 22, 2014 at 10:37 am -
Proper comedy on’t telly. Dave Allen, Open All Hours, The Two Ronnies (fork ‘andles!) and – pushing it a bit – Blaster Bates. Mind you, can still look ‘em all up on Youtube, which is one modern invention that can actually be quite useful.
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December 22, 2014 at 11:26 am -
Oh blimey – after reading all these it turns out that I’m even older that I thought I was. I consider myself ‘middle-aged’ (mind you I do expect to live to be at least 150) but even after juggling with number bases (I’m 46 in eftadecimal) the years have fallen heavily on me this morning!
But it isn’t just the words is it? I recall that at school we weren’t allowed to use slide rules in exams although log tables were OK. And don’t get me started on pre-decimal coinage … on a wage of £20,000 p.a. – how much is that per calendar month? £1,666.666666666 (etc., approximately) or £1,666 13s 4d (exactly). Same for bloody metric measures – would you believe it’s still possible to get sand sheets for the budgies cage which are 43 cm x 11 inches. Bah Humbug!!Still – Seasons best for all here, and particularly the staff (current and semi-retired). Looking forward to the continuing daily dose of sanity (well almost) in the New Year.
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December 22, 2014 at 1:53 pm -
Jim – you’ve cheered me up no end; that’s my first ‘proper’ Bah Humbug of the season! Thank you for retoring my faith that not all the proper British Values have declined irretrievably!
(P.S. – Happy Christmas, and a happy New Year. KBO, old chap!)
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December 22, 2014 at 11:29 am -
A very light hearted romp through all those things that have fallen out of use over the years. Congratulations Anna. May I add some nursing and midder ones. Enema- high hot and a hell of a lot. Pubic shave…no need any more, as nearly all the laydeez are well shaved. Something related to internet porn I think. Therefore no naughty goings on in brown envelopes plopping through the letter or darkrooms for nefarious developments. 10 day hospital stays. Free home helps. Churching…remember that anyone? Mum could not go out and about until blessed at church by the vicar. Blokes not allowed in the birthing room. Come to think of it vicars are a threatened species too. On the Albert Hall carol sing song interviews, a delightful vicar had 10 ports of call to ‘service’ over Christmas. Gone are the gentle days when the vicar swanned around in a Panama hat and linen jacket and the Doc got out of his Rolls to visit nextdoor wearing spats, pinstripes, cravat and diamond tie pin. Dr Ghandi. In nursing… Kaolin poultices. Turpentine enemas. Eusol soaks for carbuncles…I think they are out of fashion too! Industrial injuries of the horrendous kind due to poor H&S…its true and proper use. Better not go on. Vive la/le NHS it is a heck of a lot more effective than when I started in 1952.
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December 22, 2014 at 2:08 pm -
Aha – then you’ll remember Carr’s Fever Powders and Carter’s Little Liver Pills. I expect when I go they’ll need to beat my liver to death with a stick.
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December 22, 2014 at 3:43 pm -
My mother used to work at Carter’s, purveyors of Little Liver Pills, pre-war, working in the lab, depite being completely unqualified in anything scientific, apart from being technically good-looking – a great recruitment strategy. The building’s only a couple of hundred yards from Mudplugger Manor, but is now a paint factory.
A good gulp of their Industrial Thinners should see your liver off nicely.
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December 22, 2014 at 12:59 pm -
Liberty Bodice.
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December 22, 2014 at 2:00 pm -
Industrial Action (which really meant industrial inaction).
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December 22, 2014 at 4:40 pm -
Trying to explain to my granddaughter what ‘scraps’ were! My favourite was a girl in a green dress holding a basket of poppies, and of course the priceless pre war ones. She can’t understand why we would save different sizes of cut out figures in a book! But she doesn’t believe we had no TV either.
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December 22, 2014 at 6:22 pm -
https://twitter.com/Barristerblog
Off Topic but has Anna heard about this? Matthew Scott (BarristerBlogger) tweeted 7 hours ago that the High Court has quashed the original inquest into the death of Carol Felstead/Myers and ordered a fresh inquest. Her parents maintain that therapy received from Valerie Sinason led to their daughter claiming Satanic Abuse at their hands, and that the treatment ultimately led to her death.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:50 pm -
I thought “Chinky” (referring to Chinese takeaway) had passed from common usage until the other day when some UKIP chappie was strung up for using it.
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December 22, 2014 at 8:54 pm -
Oh.. and “Borstal”.
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December 22, 2014 at 10:07 pm -
And approved school.
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December 22, 2014 at 11:20 pm -
Whippersnapper
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December 22, 2014 at 11:41 pm -
I’ll see your whippersnapper and raise you a flibbertigibbet and a tiddlywink
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December 23, 2014 at 12:51 am -
Strike-a-light its been years since I heard flippertigibbet (which was how nan pronounced it)
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December 23, 2014 at 11:44 am -
Lots of now frowned on words to denote place of origin are a bit iffy to utter now. Taffy, Jock, Scotty, Paddy were once terms of endearment as fellow islanders. Geordie and Brummie are still respectable. Stray into tinted territory and you can be stun gunned by the twitter mob. Seems as long as you nickname towns or counties you seem OK. My mums shock horror word or to describe her shoes, hat and handbag can now scar a celeb.Get you sacked, or put in a virtual pillory. Maybe even in prison, as it has become so toxic. Oh the joy of watching, shhhh, Alf Garnet/t on utube a while back, after moor linked it, especially the golfing one, thanks moor. A Merry Christmas to Anna and all at The Racoon Arms. I own a small Victorian book for young ladies. What is says in there about white Europeans would curl your hair. Italians, French and Spanish and Greeks are demolished in a few prim words. Unwitting testimony/ institutional thingy. It was ever thus, an unused word again!
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December 23, 2014 at 4:59 pm -
twixt (betwixt) as in between
Meccano
Airfix models
Lino flooring
Captain Scarlet
Thunderbirds-
December 23, 2014 at 5:03 pm -
Owbridges! I suppose it’s all Jagermeister these days!
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December 23, 2014 at 7:55 pm -
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December 23, 2014 at 8:02 pm -
Alive and kicking all over the globe
http://www.clubhyper.com/forums/groupbuildframe.htm
Look for ‘Group Build Airfix Kits’
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December 24, 2014 at 7:29 am -
Thanks! I note there is a plastic version of Meccano too! New Year’s resolution: spend more time shopping!
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December 24, 2014 at 12:32 am -
slates – for writing on .
Scrumping – stealing apples in an orchard-
schrapnel collection –
sparkling Vantas (penny Vantas) .
Sunday School.
Servants.
Studs ( in soles of shoes) aka blakies.-
December 24, 2014 at 9:50 am -
“Scrumping – stealing apples in an orchard”
Dear God but that brings back memories. There was a small orchard at the bottom of our road, next to a ‘Gals’ Boarding School. All the local kids used to nick a few apples or ‘play’ Cider With Rosie type ‘games’ (a Norfolk childhood, don’t ask!) under the shade of the apple trees. The orchard is, of course, long gone as is the Gals School….both now a gated-community-without-actual-gates of ‘Retirement Apartments’.
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December 24, 2014 at 10:39 am -
Scrumping was a rite of passage for the little ones. A successful one was entry to the ‘big kids’ gang. A sort of junior version of a ‘hit’ for a mafia soldier.
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December 24, 2014 at 11:37 am -
Studs = Segs.
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December 24, 2014 at 12:36 am -
Words like “thousand”, “hundred”, and even “pounds” now seem out of fashion when prices are announced in TV ads. Saying a four hundred quid appliance is “now just three-nine-nine” clearly makes it sound cheaper…
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December 24, 2014 at 3:02 pm -
Thats becus the kidz cant cownt ubuv ten nah!
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December 24, 2014 at 10:29 am -
I have another one that took me and ‘hubby’, a very yukky old word indeed, some time to think of>>>Immersion heater. Fuses and fuse wire. Match boxes and chamber candlesticks, now that really is old fashioned, tapers and match strikers. Even a flat iron on the hob and a huge cast iron mangle were in use by one gran but not the other, during my childhood. A lady came in to do her weekly wash in her wash house. Routinely wearing gloves for a trip to town. Clippie has gone. Hats had veils too. Oh how times have changed. We children went in peoples houses to sing carols, without the neighbours having a CRB check. Happy Christmas.
Culled from ergophones comment above. Show me a PRICE without 99 stuck on the end of it!-
December 24, 2014 at 10:45 am -
” show me a price without 99 stuck on the end” but be fair, t’was always thus. At the start of my retailing career it was 19/11 (or if the shop had pretensions of grandeur 19/6) as in £24.19.6 The only difference I suppose is that what cost £24.19.6 then now costs £299. And the other convention was that under a fiver prices were nearly always only in shillings and pence – 99/11 or 99/6 etc. All of course designed then as now to give a perception of cheaper/better value
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December 24, 2014 at 11:07 am -
I was always under the impression that the pricing just under a round figure was to ensure that the shop assistant had to ‘ring-up’ the price to open the cash drawer. This ‘dissuaded’ them from putting the notes in their pockets and ‘forgetting’.
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December 24, 2014 at 12:27 pm -
Yes – I heard that theory too and there may be an element of truth in it – but in 35 years starting as a “Buyer’s Assistant” and moving through the ranks to Buying Director I was never instructed to price that way for that purpose nor, later, did I ask my buyers to price that way for that reason. It was all about yours customers feeling and telling their husband/mates/selves that “I got it for £4 something” – not a penny short of £5. And as nearly all my experience was in Mail Order (no cash, no tills – in those days X shillings per week collected by your “Agent”) it did not really apply. Latterly and increasingly of course credit and debit cards, even where “cash” did/does change hands, made it unnecessary to prevent the “fiddling” justification but it is still rife as the start of this thread pointed out.
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December 24, 2014 at 5:46 pm -
Just off to listen to an LP.
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December 24, 2014 at 6:45 pm -
I love my LPs, the scratches brought me memories.
I drove off to the dump about eight years ago and they’ve been sitting in the boot ever since. I just couldn’t do it.
Ruined I suppose???
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December 25, 2014 at 3:35 pm -
The Bestes Frau In The Whole World was given, by Crippled Son, a CD of Injun Music for Xmas. I managed to crash two laptops trying to rip it to mp3 so she could listen to it (using my cellphone as an mp3 player). Seems neither Windows nor Mint Linux like such archaic media forms as ye olde Compact Discette. I mean, hasn’t Our Own Tiny Tim realised we are in the 21st Century? I shall send him his birthday card on a 7″ floppy…along with an 8track of Abba’s greatest hits. Stars On 45…rpm
Oh and belated Xmas greetings to all and sundry (and some of you are really sundry) down the Raccoon Arms, may the roast foul not sit too heavily in extended stomachs and may the farting in the DEADTIME between The Queen’s Speech and Xmas Tea pass not too odiferously. May the family Monoploy Game (other Traditional causes of family rows are available) not end in more than one count of ABH. May you only have watched the James Bond film a handful of times since 1968 and your mince pies contain actual real fruit.
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December 24, 2014 at 8:57 pm -
Before I fill the coal scuttle, must go and see if the rag and bone man is coming up the road with his horse and cart.
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December 24, 2014 at 10:56 pm -
And a fluffy yellow chick or a goldfish in a bag.
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December 27, 2014 at 11:14 am -
I’m 40, and I remember the rag and bone man! Proves that recycling isn’t some new fad. Remember the 10p deposit on Barr fizzy drinks bottles?
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December 29, 2014 at 2:34 pm -
I remember when it was in d’s (but not sure how many – maybe only 1) and we would scour the streets in the hope of some extra sweet-buying potential. I’ve noticed in Berlin ( and presumably the rest of Germany) that a deposit system is… systematic… and some of the street folks appear to make a living by collecting the empty containers left behind by the tourists who don’t realise their empty beer can is in fact worth a quarter of an Euro at Lidl.
Have we done “Tallies” at the Co-op btw? …
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December 25, 2014 at 1:11 am -
Happy Christmas to ane and ‘a, e’en ‘a thae English folk fit dinna seem t’ ken it’s nae jist the ‘Lexicon of England’ fits gaein’ agley….
Fae ane o’ them fit came fae up thir
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December 27, 2014 at 7:14 pm -
it’s nae jist the ‘Lexicon of England’ fits gaein’ agley
Aye, it’s the newspapers an’ aw. Fit kin’ o’ Sunday Post disnae hae Oor Wullie or The Broons?!
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December 29, 2014 at 2:21 pm -
My grandmother used to send me to the fishmonger for some lights for the cat. (they were free)
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December 29, 2014 at 2:27 pm -
I’m too late to join this dialogue properly but here’s a contribution from a long-ago holiday memory – for number 36.
http://www.intocornwall.com/engine/azabout.asp?guide=Cripplesease
“Cripplesease is an interestingly named hamlet in Towednack Parish. The name is believed to originate from the 19th century and meaning what it quite literally says, that it is a resting place after the climb up the long hill. “ -
December 29, 2014 at 8:41 pm -
After polling the family, the consensus view was that lemonade bottles attracted 3d
As for the ‘rag and bone man’, at least until this summer just gone, there has for years been a chappie comes down our road in deepest surburbia, complete with horse and cart, ringing his handbell, collecting whatever scrap metal we care to shower upon him
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December 30, 2014 at 9:19 pm -
Sadly the kind of TV shows which feature many of these words are now unlikely to be screened again:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11316397/Racist-1970s-comedies-would-be-banned-now-says-head-of-Ofcom.html
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