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Post by topbilled on Jan 26, 2023 4:57:05 GMT
Okay I'm watching SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE (1935) again.
Guy is at the switchboard calling out...
'Hello Cargan? This is Bland. Well I'm at Baldpate. Everything is jakearoo.'
***
This comes from the expression 'everything is jake.'
It means fine or good. Such as “Don’t worry, everything is jake!”
The term is said to have begun during the roaring 20s and was still in vogue during the 1930s and 1940s.
Nowadays, people use the word 'cool' instead of 'jake' or 'jakearoo.'
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 26, 2023 9:12:07 GMT
Great idea for a thread and that is a neat example to start with.
There are so many, but one I love is "give him/her the air."
Once you are aware of it, you'll notice it used in movies from the '30s and '40s all the time.
It's mainly used to mean "dumped my boy/girlfriend" as in "she gave him the air," translated, "she dumped him."
However, like many expressions, it is flexible as it can also be used to mean to just blow somebody off for a meeting or someone you just met in a bar as in "I was talking to her for a few minutes and then she gave me the air."
It also, and this seems like an older meaning, can mean to get fired, as in "his boss will give him the air if he's late again," but by the '40s, it mainly meant "to blow somebody off or to dump them."
To be sure, that's just my take from watching old movies, if somebody knows more about the expression, that would be great.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 26, 2023 13:11:12 GMT
"Take a powder" is another expression that comes up often in movies from the '30s and '40s.
It means "go away / get out of here," often used dismissively or, sometimes, in the context of escaping trouble as in "he took a powder before the cops showed up."
It comes from a time when people used to take headache powder before the powder was made into a pill like the aspirins we use today. You used to take some headache powder and go lie down until your headache felt better; hence, you left the room. Over time, it came to just mean, as noted, "go away / get out of here."
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Post by sagebrush on Jan 26, 2023 14:12:58 GMT
I love the scene in BALL OF FIRE when Gary Cooper is hosting a get-together of "slang experts" at his home for his research project.  |
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Post by sepiatone on Jan 26, 2023 17:42:03 GMT
"No dice", and "No soap" mean the same thing. Like whatever you want, or are trying to do... it ain't gonna happen. "She/He gave him/her the brush." was another way of saying somebody got "dumped". "That's solid, Jackson." Shouldn't really need any defining. Keep these examples coming! NOW we're "cooking with gas!!"  Sepiatone |
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Post by sagebrush on Jan 26, 2023 22:37:23 GMT
As a lifelong learner in the art of dance, I love "Cut yourself a slice of rug." ;D
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Post by uncle charlie on Jan 26, 2023 22:54:21 GMT
Packing a grip. These days people pack a bag or a suitcase.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 26, 2023 23:35:03 GMT
Packing a grip. These days people pack a bag or a suitcase. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 27, 2023 0:20:04 GMT
One that always cracks me up is:
"Putting the feedbag on."
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Post by Lucky Dan on Jan 27, 2023 0:43:31 GMT
Great idea for a thread and that is a neat example to start with.
I also notice you like to sprinkle heck and darn into some of your posts, which recalls the same era, when hell and damn were impolite. Nothing wrong with it. I like using antique slang myself when I'm with people who get it.
Keen is one you hear from the 50s. I didn't know how to use it properly until I heard Pete Townshend talking about some concept for a train-traveling rock and roll show where he said Rod Stewart was invited but "he was unkeen on the idea somehow," meaning not focused or not interested in it. |
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Jan 27, 2023 5:30:19 GMT
Once again I am out on the fringes of a thread... Good Night Nurse! My Dad always used this saying and I never had any idea what he was talking about. For some reason I never asked. I guess I just figured it was another nutty Geordie saying. It turned up later as Fatty Arbuckle movies and Mae West songs but I've never heard anyone else use this saying in general conversation. I see I am not the only one with this strange experience. A Way With Words tackled it. It dates back to 1908-1910. British lexicographer Eric Partridge speculates it became popular during WWI. A Way With Words www.waywordradio.org/good-night-nurse/ |
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Post by Andrea Doria on Jan 27, 2023 11:24:52 GMT
My father said, "Good Night Nurse!" too, as well as "cooking with gas."
He was a walking dictionary of '40s slang, this is a man who still wore his fedora to work into the '70s. He would describe a well dressed good looking woman as a "glamour girl." My mother would walk into the room wearing shorts and he'd say, "look at those gams." One very cringe worthy thing he would do was describe someone as a square while drawing a square in air.
Another way a woman could give a guy the air was to, "show him the door." Then go out "on the town," with the other "gals," to some place "swanky."
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Post by Lucky Dan on Jan 27, 2023 11:40:05 GMT
My father said, "Good Night Nurse!" too, as well as "cooking with gas."
He was a walking dictionary of '40s slang, this is a man who still wore his fedora to work into the '70s. He would describe a well dressed good looking woman as a "glamour girl." My mother would walk into the room wearing shorts and he'd say, "look at those gams." One very cringe worthy thing he would do was describe someone as a square while drawing a square in air.
Another way a woman could give a guy the air was to, "show him the door." Then go out "on the town," with the other "gals," to some place "swanky."
There are many men, probably most, who will not, as they advance into the middle years, modify themselves at all. They will get the same haircut at the barber shop at age 45 that they've gotten all their lives. Robert Redford still has the same do he wore in 1972. Their tastes don't evolve. Their opinions rarely shift.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 27, 2023 12:56:16 GMT
"Sacked" or "got the sack" for being fired was still used a bit into the '90s, but it was quite popular in the movies of the '30s-'50s.
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Post by kims on Jan 27, 2023 12:58:25 GMT
I check my cable provider's guide every morning for films to record and watch after I'm done with the day's work or films on early a.m. ON TCM at around 10 pm is RING OF FIRE. The one line description was "two hoodlums and a bad girl..." I had to laugh-Bad girl? Why isn't it "two bad boys and a bad girl?" I checked TCM's daily schedule, there the description is "three delinquents". Curiously, the use of "bad girl" faded as "the pill" became more accessible. Coincidence?
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