Word Power

We have all heard the commercial for increasing your stature by becoming betimes in our life.  One way to learn a new word is to subscribe to Dictionary.com’s word of the day.  It is interesting the words you can learn and use. I wouldn’t dissemble any of what I have said.

 

FW: Words that have disappeared

This came to me via email.  Not much to do with safety, but sipping on this cup of coffee, I found that I could remember many of these.

 

Words that have disappeared

Fender skirts
I haven't thought about "fender skirts" in years. When I was a kid, I considered it such a funny term. Made me think of a car in a dress.  Now even women seldom wear dresses.

Thinking about "fender skirts" started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice.  Like "curb feelers" and "steering knobs." Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.
Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50
to explain some of these terms to you.

 

Remember "Continental kits?" They were rear bumper extenders
and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental. 

 

When did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?" At some  point "parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with "emergency brake."

 

I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call
the accelerator the "foot feed."

 

Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so
you could ride the "running board" up to the house?

 

Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore: "store-bought."  Of course, just about everything is store-bought
these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.

"Coast to coast" is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing.  Now we take the term "worldwide" for granted.

 

This floors me.  On a smaller scale, "wall-to-wall" was once a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?"  It's hard to imagine that the word "pregnant" was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company. So we had all that talk about stork visits and "being in a family way" or simply "expecting."

 

Apparently "brassiere" is a word no longer in usage.  I guess it's just "bra" now.  "Unmentionables" probably wouldn't be understood at all.

It's hard to recall that this word was once said in a whisper:
"divorce."  And no one is called a "divorcee" anymore--certainly
not a "gay divorcee."  Come to think of it, "confirmed bachelors" and "career girls" are long gone, too.  I always loved going to the "picture show," but I considered "movie" an affectation.

Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s word I came across the other day: "rat fink."  Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

 

Here's a word I miss - "percolator." That was just a fun word to say.  And what was it replaced with? "Coffee maker." How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro.  Words like "DynaFlow", "Power Glide", "Rocket 88", "Hydramatic" and ElectroLux," and introducing the 1963 Admiral TV--now with "SpectraVision!"

 

Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago?
Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening their kids with castor oil anymore.

 

Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list.
The one that grieves me most - "supper." Now everybody says "dinner."

 

Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender
skirts.  Someone forwarded this to me, and I thought some of us of a "certain age" or know someone that's a "certain age" that you can send this to would remember most of these.

Unfortunately (Or fortunately), I remember them all.

The challenges of academia

I know I should have posted something by now but back on the 27th I mentioned of a job offer on the east coast. No, I figured I had a good thing going here. Needles to say, the axe is swinging wildly and one is not sure which tree it will strike down next. I had a couple of branches knocked off.
The program @ TSJC has been around for quite a while and from an informal survey TSJC OSH program has the highest enrollments of the other schools combined. But that does not make the program immune from the cuts.
In my research and discussion of on-line course delivery, I find that there are a number in academia that really don't understand distance learning and the impact it has in reaching the non-traditional student base. Uhm, you don't have anyone in a classroom, so therefore there must not be a need for the courses identified.
I need help in promoting the program. The bigger, the better.