once-common words people don’t use anymore

then there are all those old songs that use "making love" to describe what i'd think of as "making out", it used to really confuse me how songs as explicit as that could get popular

my favorite example of semantic shift is the way "cock" used to refer to the female pudenda in african-american vernacular - this is the sense in which it's used in "rotten cocksucker's ball". i'm definitely here for lucille bogan singing about her cock!

'stoned' for drunk, that's old school

It's better than drinking alone

Getting your end away

there's also the term "make whoopee" which always makes me laugh, because who the hell came up with that? did some guy who was getting laid in the 50's yell out "whoopee!!" one time?

1920s, more like. "Makin' whoopee" is old.

I like "tight" for oldschool drunk terms...

Cockeyed

I hate the term 'necking' and associate it with Alan Partridge describing Bond

Jack London always talked about being 'jingled' for drunk, which is pretty good

‘tight’ is my favorite of those terms, too, tho i never use it.

Reminds me: is there a replacement for "uptight"? I can't think of what would be adequate, in a contemporary way. Last time I heard "anal" was in, "Don't get anal about the wordcount," which was advised by Chuck Eddy at the Voice, so a while back.
Oh yeah, "uptight" and xpost Jack London and xpost 1905 use of "gay" reminds me of "Baked beans! Out of sight!" said by someone at a boarding house table, in a turn-of-the-century Jack book.
(R.Crumb got "Keep on Truckin'" from his collection of very vintage 78s.)
Speaking of music writers, haven't noticed one using "albeit" in a while, and don't miss it---but does it have a shade of meaning missed by "although"?

xp - yeah, I don't use it myself but I always enjoy hearing it in old films or such...

xp - yeah, I don't use it myself but I always enjoy hearing it in old films or such...

Don't people still say uptight to mean uptight? Certainly more than I hear "anal" anymore.

Hope so!

At the time of the Stevie Wonder song, did "uptight" mean something like "got everything sewn up correctly"? Because he seems to be unusually excited about being anxious and repressed.

"Tighten Up" probably also related.

yeah, he seemed to mean like, "tighten up/shipshape'---never heard anybody else use "uptight" in that way, rhyming with "out of sight," even!

'stoned' for drunk, that's old school

― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, June 29, 2022 1:10 PM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also, stoned in the 1960s for tripping on acid.

"Uptight" went from a negative word, meaning "tense," in the 1930s, to a positive one, meaning "out of sight," in the early '60s, before whiplashing back to its negative connotation in the late '60s.

There were multimedia performances with the Velvet Underground promoted under the name "Andy Warhol's Up-Tight" in early '66, perhaps playing on the double connotation of the word.

then there are all those old songs that use "making love" to describe what i'd think of as "making out",

I don't know if "making love" ever meant "making out". In old movies it always means "hitting on" or "courting" or otherwise developing a romantic relationship. As in this exchange from Horse Feathers (1932):

Frank : Dad wants me to give you up. You know, you're interfering with my studies.
Connie : Ha-ha-ha. He must think I'm terrible.
Frank : But I think you're wonderful. You're beautiful.
Connie : Are you making love to me?

In Minnesota in the early 90s my midwestern college peers said “scamming” meant “making out” (I think, but I’m still not clear) and it confused me as an east coaster.

My memory of the early 90s was that to "scam on" someone was synonymous with "hitting on" them; I never heard "scam" without the on used to mean "make out." But who knows what they were up to in the Midwest.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=suet&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csuet%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Csuet%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=creosote&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccreosote%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=chilblains&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cchilblains%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hanker&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chanker%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pocketbook&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpocketbook%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=skedaddle&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cskedaddle%3B%2Cc0

Writing may differ from speech

Have vague memories of saying 'laced' for drunk/high... and weirdly, maybe 'draced'? Maybe that was a local thing.

Blootered
Steamin'/ Steamboats
Away wi' it
Stocious
Paraletic (sp?)
Miroclous (sp?) etc

You probably not be surprised to hear there are dozens of words in Scotland for being drunk. However I'm not sure how many of them are still in use, the last time I was up "mortal" seemed to be in vogue. And "goosed".

“shitpiled” was my favorite local term in the early 90s.

“pashing” and especially “pash rash” will flush out the gen X Aussies

LOL sorry Matt I'm late to the party, was just coming here to say this one. Honestly it feels like theres loads of Aussie slang from the 70s that americans peobably thing we still say but we just dont, like struth and crikey and pash.

And "rack off".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAgIFeq72oM

the word we (kids/Herefordshire/80s) used to use all the time was "skill" (adj) (or sometimes even "skilliant") - the only time I've heard it anywhere else is in Son of Rambow

I don't think "skilliant" was a thing but "skill" definitely was in Worcester in the 80s

I think "ace" hung on a bit longer

until "wicked" took over

surely not another middle-aged Worcester person on here! (unless you are colonel poo with a new name)

I think 'skill' made a brief appearance round our way but it seemed a bit affected.

Skill very popular where I grew up in west London in the early 80s. Favourite morphing of the phrase was 'skillage in the village'.

i remember "i am skill!" in shropshire in the early 70s

People don't seem to 'chip off' any more (i.e. leaving), that was a big north London thing in the 80s, probably the rest of London too

Do UK people still use 'et' for 'ate'?

Depends where you are in the UK I would imagine.

Do UK people still use 'et' for 'ate'?

I didn't even realize that was a UK thing; I thought it was a Boston/Maine thing, because I think I first encountered it in Jaws (the book) and then later in Stephen King.

I think "ace" hung on a bit longer

― even the birds in the trees seemed to whisper "get fucked" (bovarism)

until "wicked" took over

― even the birds in the trees seemed to whisper "get fucked" (bovarism)

both peak sophie aldred

I didn't even realize that was a UK thing; I thought it was a Boston/Maine thing, because I think I first encountered it in Jaws (the book) and then later in Stephen King.

New England.

wait there's a New England??

Afternoon is just another cinema showtime anymore.

I once texted a young person about "catching a matinee", and they thought it was a typo of some joke about an aquatic mammal.

Never heard 'et' or 'chipping off'.

It’s 23 for all of you; I’ll get tight & make out on the chesterfield with my squeeze if I want to.

Tight as an owl?

Tight is a word my parents used to use. Getting tight at the rugger club dance. Does anyone still say "rugger" apart from my dad?

Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg.