once-common words people don’t use anymore

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.

xp I take it rugger originated at the same time as Soccer and for pretty much the same reasons, like in fact those were the 2 choices.
ONe has become a pretty much technical term for a game and the other has become an archaism with certain class association.
Actually maybe that's 2 main choices with another load of forms of football more localised.

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.

"Scamming" meaning "making out" was a hallmark of late '80s/early '90s South Florida/

'Skill' was still around in the early '90s (Midlands UK).

Only ever really heard 'rugger' in the context of the derogatory phrase 'rugger buggers', indicating posh wankers who play rugby.

'Et' for 'ate' I always thought was just an accent thing rather than a separate word?

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?

"I felt a little tight" already seemed old-fashioned when Was (Not Was) used it in "Walk the Dinosaur". Fortunately, they followed that up with an up-to-the-minute Miami Vice reference.

The greatest use of "tight" ever is the way Katherine Hepburn delivers the line, "Unlike my husband, I'd rather be tight than be president."

(State of the Union)

_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._

"Scamming" meaning "making out" was a hallmark of late '80s/early '90s South Florida/

Circa 1992 I heard "scamming on" and guessed that it meant something like "pursuing" or "wooing."

This would have probably been Northeast / Midatlantic collegiate dialect. Spoken in a rough trapezoid bounded by Ithaca, Boston, Chapel Hill, Harrisonburg? Therefore including Princeton, Wellesley, New Haven, Charlottesville, Williamsburg, etc. I don't think it was ever in my vernacular.

But around the same time I remember a separate term, "scope." Like, a "scope" was someone you admired from afar, purely based on their look or fashion sense or vibe or social circle or whatever. The rules seemed to be that you couldn't approach a scope directly. You could not stalk a scope. It was out of bounds to try to figure out their class schedule or their dorm or whatever.

BUT if events transpired so that you met a scope at a party, or you were introduced by mutual friends, then you could proceed as normal to scam on your scope.

Ugh, just typing this stuff out makes me cringe. So glad to be out of that world.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=churlish&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3#
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/churlish

Where I am, "churlish not to" was the next step after "rude not to".

the mp on the radio just this morning said it would be churlish to stop the prime minister having that wedding party at chequers next month because so many other people had had their wedding parties disrupted by COVID. which is exactly the same, obviously

but, yeah, people do still say churlish

The cad.

I'm not Churlish, I'm American

I'm not a churl
Not yet a curmudgeon

Nor a misanthrope

Possibly a crank

I'm not Churlish, I'm American

I hear the Churlish American community is pretty large.

He was an American Churl.

Living with an uptown churl

speaking of which does uptown churl still post?

I came across the word in a NYT article. There was a quote from a classics instructor about Johnson's perception of his instructors or peers, so I knew it was still in use (and the usage seemed apt). I don't hear it used much, but I think I'd still be understood and could attempt a revival here.

I am just a churl in the world

Why do young people come up with new words? Not to be understood by their parents? For the joy of naming?

Are there enough alternate ways to say covet? It seems to be on a stable trajectory. It would be interesting to see long-lasting words, not only nouns, without explicit referential or syntactical function.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=covet&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3

joy of naming/in-group vs out-group word use imo

a friend was talking about her college-aged students calling songs “a bop” and it’s funny because that’s definitely regional slang (and also old timey) that’s disseminated via social media

the extent to which language is social fascinates me, and the extent to which internet culture influences slang also fascinates me. my ex is very fond of using the word "shirty", for instance, which i think is some archaic form of uk slang? i'm personally very fond of "naff", which i saw being used on usenet back in the '90s and has stuck with me. the whole idea of "stanning", how many people these days know the etymology of that word? i didn't for a long time. i thought it had to do with post-soviet balkanization. no, seriously. and the cultural context matters too. "moderate" is a dirty word these days, so people say "nuanced" now instead. i'm not going to say i "covet" something because covetousness is a sin. two sins, actually, in the christian denomination i grew up in.

i actually see "ope" surprisingly often on discord these days - this wasn't a word i ever heard anybody use when i actually _lived_ in the midwest, and i think it's only a matter of time for it to spread outside the midwest. i kept "y'all" in my vocabulary after moving away from kentucky - well before it became a preferred form of gender neutral address, it was a regular part of my vocabulary.

I get irrationally irritated when I see people claim that "ope" is a thing which is hilarious because... I totally say it irl?

I've never typed it in my life, as far as I can remember. Definitely a verbal exclamation that doesn't map to writing in my brain

I think I'd type "oops" or "welp" instead, which are probably just as laden with cultural weight

i kept "y'all" in my vocabulary after moving away from kentucky - well before it became a preferred form of gender neutral address, it was a regular part of my vocabulary.

I feel like y'all stopped being a Southern thing in the late '80s when LA rappers started popularizing it.

Did "whiz" stop being a euphemism for urination after the 70s, or is it just that I grew out of the age range that uses the term?

i'm personally very fond of "naff", which i saw being used on usenet back in the '90s and has stuck with me.

Very 70s UK.

I just saw the word “toper” for drunkard. I don’t know it’s ever been common, but ngram suggests some dropoff since uh, 1900 with brief relative spike in early 00s. Stay current, moralists and boozers.

I think I'd type "oops" or "welp" instead, which are probably just as laden with cultural weight

― mh

see, i think of "welp" as being specifically the midwestern word for "i am going to take my leave now"

i remember saying "i'm gonna take a whiz" when i was growing up in the '80s, so it lasted at least that long. i don't know what the slang term for micturition is now. i think it's just "piss"?

I have a friend who still uses 'whiz'. 'Slash' is just as popular as ever. No-one under 60 says 'leak' or refers to 'breaking the seal'.

A lot of words we used for a foolish person when I was a kid appear to have fallen out of use, or at least, I never hear anyone use them IRL *or* on TV.

Pillock, twit, wally, prat - that kind of thing.

... a Jimmy Riddle. Seriously though, does anyone do rhyming slang anymore?

I just saw the word “toper” for drunkard

Funnily I have too, as the solution to a crossword clue in the Observer.

Re: rhyming slang, no, probably not, apart from 'butcher's' for a look and a number of words where they don't realise that it is, e,g
'Cobblers' (awls = balls)

when we were kids we would drink koolaid all day and then gather round the ol pepole and just whizz and whizz
― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, April 27, 2004 2:00 PM bookmarkflaglink

pate

words I like that are still in use: mull, hull, cull

null, sully

ruly (the words above are words I like that are still in use)

"i'm personally very fond of "naff", which i saw being used on usenet back in the '90s and has stuck with me."

In the UK naff is indelibly associated with Princess Anne, who was quoted at least once asking photographers to naff off. You have to pronounce it narf orf. It's hard to explain Princess Anne for a US audience.

Naff is one of those words that's still used in print frequently. Albeit that it's mostly used in the "shoddy" sense, e.g. "that's a bit naff". For example this headline from last year:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/26/bring-it-all-back-why-naff-noughties-pop-is-suddenly-cool-again

I use it every so often, in a self-conscious way. I would never use it sincerely, though, e.g. if I had to tell someone that their son had been hit by a car and killed. I would say "it was well minging" instead.

Also super, as in "he was super serious" or "this is super simple", seemed to peak a few years ago, but it has been a while since I last saw it deployed in anger. I've always thought that it sounded patronising, as if you were lecturing a small child.