Worn-Out Words

Was listening to the baseball network on satellite radio and the hosts talked about how it was ‘raining cats and dogs’ out there.

The first host wondered where the phrase originated and the second host said: “ah, who cares? No one says it anymore.”

I cared, and it occurred to me that some still say it. I had to look it up.

The phrase’s origin is from 17th century Europe - heavy rains would sometimes result in dead animals being moved down the street in flooding.

Made me think of words that have been forgotten.

They used to say:

Groovy:

Simon  and Garfunkel sang a song that had feeling groovy as the chorus. We don’t say groovy much anymore.

Davenport:

My grandma used to say. “Go sit on the Davenport.”

She was talking about the couch, of course, but by the time she was telling us, no one knew what the hell a Davenport was.

Snazzy:

“Why, don’t you look snazzy?”

When we were kids if we dressed up that was why we might hear. I wonder what my kids might say if I told them they looked snazzy.

Yuletide Gay:

This one popped up in a Christmas song the other day. My buddy texted me:

May all your yuletides be gay.

Sinatra was singing the song.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“Wishing you a fun Christmas season,” he said.

The word ‘gay’ was transformed.

There was a Tik-Tok video about a mother and daughter trying to guess what the slang of today meant.

I couldn’t guess any of it!

Rizz?

Bet?

My boys would answer a number of my questions with a one word answer:

‘Bet’.

I’m still not sure what they were trying to tell me.

I have no clue what ‘Rizz’ means.

Scary…

…I know more about the days of ‘Davenport’ than I do about what kids are saying today.

“May all your yuletides be gay.”