Words

by Hattie Dyck

Remembering yesterday is fun for people like me who can laugh at themselves when they remember many things from the past and enjoy reliving them.

   Words have changed as have phrases, and many have disappeared altogether. I can’t remember when someone last told me to “put on my best bib and tucker”, or that someone they knew was “living the life of Riley.” Back in the day we dressed in pedal pushers, and, we so badly wanted a pair of spats, even if we were flirting with being accused of being a knucklehead or a nincompoop.

   When you’re aging you would have been reminded that “every dog has it’s day” or, we might even remind ourselves that “it’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.”

   If we can look back far enough we can remember when kids were “knee high to a grasshopper.” Also, it was a time when there were more of these expressions than “Carter has pills.” Also, “well fiddlesticks”, I may as well “see you in the funny papers.”

   I hope our readers are “hunky dory” with these lost words and

expressions, and enjoy a “fine kettle of fish” before you can say “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”  We were advised by the phrases “don’t take any wooden nickels” or “hey, it’s your nickel.” If you didn’t like patched clothes or socks you wore them anyway because your mother said “a stitch in time saved nine.”

   Tardy people were accused of being “as slow as molasses running up hill in January.” You were told that “slow and steady wins the race” and “time and tides wait for no man,” also that “he who hesitates is lost.” A person that was too aggressive was referred to as “”a bull in a china closet.”

    Those who didn’t like to spend their money were called “spendthrifts or stingy.”

 Women who weren’t married by age twenty were called “old maids.” And, on it went. Fun for those of us in our senior years to remember. Bye for now.