once-common words people don’t use anymore

there are words people used to say in the playground a lot that were conflating being silly/stupid with being mentally handicapped. I don't really want to even say what they were, but it always amazes me that these words were common enough to be learned by children. I'm glad I don't hear them any more.

xp to myself

I think it was lumbago that had George Jefferson walking on Bentley's back.

TIL that that line in "Lazy Sunday" is "How's old Bert's lumbago?"

Always thought it was "How's your bird's lumbago?"

"How's yer Bert's lumbago?" surely?

Hm it does sound slightly more like "your" than "old." I just went by some random lyric site... now I see there's another site that says it's "your old Bert's"!

lumbago was a final jeopardy answer a few years ago and nobody got it. the clue: "Adding “P” to a word for a chronic back condition gets you this synonym for graphite or pencil lead". one of the contestants was a latin teacher.

milliner / millinery

Never heard lumbago used in conversation but come across it all the time in medical coding.

you aren't hearing "shan't" much in the US these days, and "shall" only got a stay of execution from Gandalf

At school in the 80s I had a very old English teacher who insited it be spelled "sha'n't"

That’s the Lewis Carroll spelling right

Literally never seen it anywhere else

modals are a fun subject in English, there's been a big shift in their use over the last fifty or so years but as a rule nobody really notices it

(side note: shall as a first-person variant of will is both characteristically English fuckery and susceptible to falling into disuse... the Irish never fell for it, and probably consequently US English isn't super into it either)

Goolies

I imagine hashtag has more or less replaced pound sign except on automated telephone menus, though today I learned it’s actual name is an octothorpe.

goolies is such a Young Ones word

catarrh

actually, there are quite a few outmoded medical terms that once were in common use

All of l33t sp34k

Rascal? Rascal Flatts and Dizzee Rascal notwithstanding, I don't feel like it's a word anyone really uses in common parlance.

No, I still hear rascal used in a lighthearted way.

I still enjoy using 'druthers' but I fear that when I do others may mistake me for a grizzled prospector or somesuch.

was just reading a book where someone was turned down by the army for having flat feet. do people still have flat feet? why are they no longer a problem?

Orthotics are a big industry

And I think the condition is usually called fallen arches now, which at least sounds more poetic

Twitter says this

Studies analyzing the correlation between flat feet and physical injuries in soldiers have been inconclusive, but none suggest that flat feet are an impediment, at least in soldiers who reached the age of military recruitment without prior foot problems. Instead, in this population, there is a suggestion of more injury in high arched feet. A 2005 study of Royal Australian Air Force recruits that tracked the recruits over the course of their basic training found that neither flat feet nor high arched feet had any impact on physical functioning, injury rates or foot health. If anything, there was a tendency for those with flat feet to have fewer injuries. Another study of 295 Israel Defense Forces recruits found that those with high arches suffered almost four times as many stress fractures as those with the lowest arches. A later study of 449 U.S. Navy special warfare trainees found no significant difference in the incidence of stress fractures among sailors and Marines with different arch heights.

Not twitter, wikipedia

what is wrong with my brain this weekend?

I have flat feet. My mum took me to a chiropodist a few times and I had to wear arches in my shoes for a bit but they were fucking uncomfortable so I used to just take them out. It's still unclear to me what the actual problem is tbh, never caused me any issues in my life.

Having never applied to join the army I don't know if it's still a thing.

i have high arches and was told that they contributed to my frequent ankle sprains (no idea if this is true)

don't posties get called flat-footed? I have heard a postie getting called a "flat-footed fucker" before. if you can't shoot people then mailshot them!

long ago in the US, cops who walked their beats were sometimes called flat-foots

lumbago is a great one

lamaze

cruet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kHIno814zE

I don't know what 'modal' is, and have never truly understood the distinction between 'will' and 'shall', if indeed there truly is one.

knockers
bristols
whatchamacallit
thingamajig

I remember being annoyed when I heard on the radio that "charabanc" was one of the words being dropped from the OED that year. I had only just used it when swearing at some useless minibus driver blocking up the road with his poxy charabanc.

Modal is just about modifying a verb in terms of intent/likelihood. I've taught it to lower school kids as 'lottery' verbs ie 'when I win the lottery, I might buy this, I could buy this but I will buy that for sure.'

The will/shall distinction feels archaic to me albeit still on the spectrum of intent. That old tale of a man drowning and shouting 'I will drown!' and people thinking, fine, if you're that sure you carry on mush. Whereas if he'd shouted 'I shall drown' everyone would have waded in to help.

I heard someone say 'crivvens' when they tripped up a kerb the other day. A much underused exclamation.

I'm pretty sure I still say 'whatchamacallit' quite often, as well as 'oopsadaisy'.

no one talks about "the web" or "the net" these days do they? apart from like, eminem and other old people

so glad "internets" and its worse variants seem to have died for good. maybe wonkette still uses them idk

Modal very popular with user interface designers.

yes that's on my 'words I never used until about six years ago' list

The will/shall distinction feels archaic to me albeit still on the spectrum of intent. That old tale of a man drowning and shouting 'I will drown!' and people thinking, fine, if you're that sure you carry on mush. Whereas if he'd shouted 'I shall drown' everyone would have waded in to help.

It's even more complicated than that... will and shall switch meanings based on person:

I will drown! = I intend to drown, don't stop me!
I shall drown! = I am about to drown, help me!
He will drown! = He is about to drown, help him!
He shall drown! = He intends to drown, don't stop him!

Feel like nobody says "it stinks" anymore when judging the quality of something. "Sucks" seems to now be the only term people use in that context.

F. Hazel, is that true about the last usage? ie that 'shall' for a 3rd person implies intent and willing? I didn't know that.

I would say that 'the net' was an earlier common usage; then 'the web' was seen as more correct and people stopped saying net; then just 'online' became normal; but I'm not sure that 'web' has disappeared.

Might have more a shade of command to it than intent, but yeah. It was always a prescriptivist hack to address the supposed ambiguity of shall vs. will, it's very much written about and presumably some speakers actively made the distinction in their speech and writing. Think of it like the may/can distinction in modern English... everyone uses "can" to request permission and express ability, and it confuses nobody because the context makes the meaning clear. But some dingbat is always going to respond with "I'm sure you CAN, are you asking me if you MAY?"

It seems as if even "online" is gradually fading since it's becoming redundant in such phrases as "Last week I bought an (x) online." Might take a while for it to disappear altogether though.

Feel like nobody says "it stinks" anymore when judging the quality of something. "Sucks" seems to now be the only term people use in that context.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/24/keir-starmer-renews-call-for-inquiry-into-government-sleaze

The Labour leader told BBC News: “It matters. It is about integrity, it is about taxpayers’ money. Every day, there is more evidence of this sleaze. Frankly, it stinks.

“If there is nothing to see here, whether it is the refurb of No 10, whether it is the dodgy contracts, whether it is the privileged access, if there is nothing to see, publish everything, have a full inquiry.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Calling a person a "stinker" is totally retro. Makes me think of an elementary school teacher in the mid-1970s.

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.

Did people use "vouchsafe"? Shakespeare loves it.

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

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

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

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.