once-common words people don’t use anymore

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Gerhard Rolfs: spent over a month in the Twat

Tracer Hand, Sunday, 17 July 2022 10:24 (two years ago) link

What a story though

Alba, Sunday, 17 July 2022 10:49 (two years ago) link

One to tell the kids..

Mark G, Sunday, 17 July 2022 14:20 (two years ago) link

...In the Twat, as a Mussulman
Don't stop till you get enough

Mark G, Sunday, 17 July 2022 14:22 (two years ago) link

Wikipedia also mentions a "traveling-wave amplifier tube". Which leads me to this page, which has a good example of comedy that uses negative space as a punchline:
https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Traveling_wave_tube.html

"A TWT has sometimes been referred to as a traveling wave amplifier tube (TWAT), although this term has fallen out of use."

Ashley Pomeroy, Sunday, 17 July 2022 16:54 (two years ago) link

My own mother called me a 'twerp' yesterday and I thought of this thread. And then I thought of Kurt Vonnegut:

INTERVIEWER

What is a twerp in the strictest sense, in the original sense?

VONNEGUT

It’s a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass.

Thanks, mum.

Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 17 July 2022 19:46 (two years ago) link

I was wondering earlier what word could best be substituted for twat. Twerp, while obviously milder to most non-Browning ears, is probably it.

Alba, Sunday, 17 July 2022 19:53 (two years ago) link

ooh i don't agree with that at all, they're *very* different, twerp has much less vehement hostility and is also (if used affectionately) less affectionate

i ilx-searched twerp to see if anyone uses it except me (ans = yes) or as often as me (ans = daver popshots uses it a lot also)

mark s, Sunday, 17 July 2022 19:58 (two years ago) link

Divided by a common insult.

Alba, Sunday, 17 July 2022 20:05 (two years ago) link

when I was a kid in the 80's someone reprimanded me for using "twat" told me it meant I was calling them a pregnant fish

calzino, Sunday, 17 July 2022 20:06 (two years ago) link

I think once you reach a certain age it’s harder to be a twerp. Elon Musk can still be a twerp and a twat. Kelvin MacKenzie is just a twat.

Alba, Sunday, 17 July 2022 20:08 (two years ago) link

I was told a prat was a pregnant fish.

Twerp definitely much gentler* than twat, and essentially floats free of any meaning beyond 'a bit of a wally' (see also 'numpty').

*certainly when deployed by my mum.

Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 17 July 2022 20:08 (two years ago) link

tubular (Also, do you live in a country other than France that uses a comma as a decimal point? Do you know how this difference came to be?)

youn, Sunday, 17 July 2022 20:58 (two years ago) link

Does anyone say full stop anymore or was that just from the age of telegrams?

youn, Sunday, 17 July 2022 21:23 (two years ago) link

I used "full stop" at the end of an article last week!

https://www.stereogum.com/2191562/baroness-yellow-and-green-turns-10/reviews/the-anniversary/

but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 17 July 2022 21:27 (two years ago) link

Always assumed”twunt” was an ilx portmaneau, but now words don’t “mean” anything

Warning: Choking Hazard (Hunt3r), Sunday, 17 July 2022 22:45 (two years ago) link

i think twunt might come from b3ta or possibly before that. it's not from ilx though, just general UK internet

full stop is just British for period so yes it's used all the time

even the birds in the trees seemed to whisper "get fucked" (bovarism), Sunday, 17 July 2022 22:52 (two years ago) link

maiden/maid (the latter for anything other than a housecleaner, and even for that becoming less common).

longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 18 July 2022 00:34 (two years ago) link

You still hear maiden all the time if you're a cricket fan!

Tom D: I was in the army (Tom D.), Monday, 18 July 2022 07:01 (two years ago) link

don't forget about twit

Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 18 July 2022 13:16 (two years ago) link

twit was roughly equivalent to dipshit afaik

Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 18 July 2022 13:16 (two years ago) link

There were plenty of slang words for pudenda that I would've used as a teenager. Fanny, minge, radge, snatch, axe wound...anything but twat.

RIP quim

fetter, Monday, 18 July 2022 15:17 (two years ago) link

^^^ revived by the first Avengers movie in 2012!

Doctor Casino, Monday, 18 July 2022 15:19 (two years ago) link

three weeks pass...

https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=all&q=facepalm

Noel Emits, Thursday, 11 August 2022 09:32 (two years ago) link

what happened to smdh. bring it back.

Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 11 August 2022 10:26 (two years ago) link

not come across a 429 error before. JUst got one there. So think I might need to start using an alternative to google.

Stevolende, Thursday, 11 August 2022 10:33 (two years ago) link

lmao still hanging on but rofl is in really bad shape these days, sad to see. when was the last time someone even roflmaoed?

I miss pmsl which I thought had real potential but afaict it never spread much beyond UK teens on bebo and myspace

I am very glad the cutesy internet speak of late 00s / early 10s (interwebs etc) seems to be almost extinct though because that shit got unbearable for a while

Left, Thursday, 11 August 2022 12:16 (two years ago) link

I was struck by this article a couple of days in the newspaper about a feud between George Best and Bobby Charlton:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/10/the-feud-between-best-and-charlton-that-shattered-manchester-united

Quoth Bobby, "so many young people on the ‘scene’ have the attitude that nearly everything and ordinary people are ‘sick’. They behave as if the peak of senility is reached at the age of 25 and they must wring every drop out of life by then whether they offend other people or not.” (Bobby) goes on to attack those who insist on being “cool”, “gas” and “with it”."

It's interesting how "sick" has come full circle.

Ashley Pomeroy, Thursday, 11 August 2022 18:38 (two years ago) link

Did people use "vouchsafe"? Shakespeare loves it.

Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 August 2022 18:40 (two years ago) link

Reminds me of a Proust translation where the literal "He did not respond" became "He vouchsafed no answer" in English.

Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 11 August 2022 19:27 (two years ago) link

six months pass...

“beetling” to mean looming, jutting up etc most commonly used with eyebrows but have also read it in conjunction with hills, cliffs

Tracer Hand, Sunday, 5 March 2023 18:20 (one year ago) link

Jordan Peterson seems to be the only person in the world who still says "up yours"

six months pass...

Not really the right thread but I couldn’t find a better one:

“Invincible” is pretty common word but in all my 43 years, despite being a big reader, I’ve never heard or seen the word “vincible” until today.

just1n3, Saturday, 9 September 2023 11:55 (one year ago) link

nine months pass...

dasn’t

Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 12:34 (four months ago) link

I love dasn’t, and talked about it on some other thread once. It was one of my grandma’s common admonishments.

The transparently flimsy and misleading (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 15:41 (four months ago) link

Never heard of it. What does it mean? How was it used?

Nasty, Brutish & Short, Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:02 (four months ago) link

It’s a contraction of “dares not.” Grandma used to say, “you dasn’t do that!”

The transparently flimsy and misleading (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:34 (four months ago) link

oh! i spell it like dursn't

ppl do still say durst (if they're pretending to be gandalf)

mark s, Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:40 (four months ago) link

or dissing Christina Aguilara

A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:42 (four months ago) link

time for an RIP Fetterman thread

A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:44 (four months ago) link

Dasn't is a contraction of dare not [...] "Ah," you say, "but where in the world does that s come from?" Well, for one thing, dare had an old past tense form durst (still occurring in some dialects), and a second person singular present-tense form darst, pronounced (dairst).

Kim Kimberly, Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:50 (four months ago) link

'When you durst do it, then you were a man'.

I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:54 (four months ago) link

lady macbeth pretending to be gandalf (the core of her motivation IMO)

mark s, Tuesday, 25 June 2024 18:56 (four months ago) link

I remember that previous thread with the mentions of dasn't! It seems to me I spoke up about remembering seeing it in "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn"

Hongro Hongro Hippies (Myonga Vön Bontee), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 20:34 (four months ago) link

I don't hear about people getting "perturbed" anymore. I guess anything less than a seething rage isn't worth mentioning.

punning display, Saturday, 29 June 2024 00:38 (four months ago) link

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I was properly miffed...

m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Saturday, 29 June 2024 01:00 (four months ago) link

I'm in a constant state of miffage

Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 29 June 2024 01:26 (four months ago) link

“There, there.”

Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 4 July 2024 20:48 (three months ago) link

When I was a child, everyone knew what a chesterfield was.

It was on a accident (hardcore dilettante), Saturday, 6 July 2024 12:49 (three months ago) link

Contraband

your mom goes to limgrave (dog latin), Saturday, 6 July 2024 13:30 (three months ago) link


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