# Heavens to Murgatroyd!



## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

Only senior citizens should read this. The younger generation wouldn't understand it. Heavens to Murgatroyd!


Would you believe the email spell checker did not recognize the word, Murgatroyd? Lost Words from our childhood: words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really!


The other day a not so elderly, I say 75, lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said, “What the heck is a Jalopy?”



He never heard of the word jalopy! Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.


About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included “Don’t touch that dial,” “Carbon copy,” “You sound like a broken record” and “Hung out to dry.”



Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie We’ knew how to straighten up and fly right. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy Moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill Not for all the tea in China! 



Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys, and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.


We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle! Or, This is a fine kettle of fish! We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards. Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind We blink, and they’re gone. Where have all those phrases gone?


Long gone: Pshaw, the milkman did it. Hey! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff!


We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeable times. For a child, each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging.

See ya later, alligator!


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

LOL.


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## neverdrawn (Jan 3, 2009)

Well that's a fine how do ya do! Just last night I made the comment when listening to old school rock and roll over the air at the local bowling they should turn it up and rip off the knobs. Some of the youngsters in the crowd gave me some really odd looks!


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

neverdrawn said:


> Well that's a fine how do ya do! Just last night I made the comment when listening to old school rock and roll over the air at the local bowling they should turn it up and rip off the knobs. Some of the youngsters in the crowd gave me some really odd looks!


You get the same looks when you mention "hanging up the phone" to them.


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

I like to mess with my teenage grandsons when the show me or tell me about something that they are excited about I have to tell them; " That's groovy, man"


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## Steve G (Nov 29, 2016)

bowgy said:


> Only senior citizens should read this. The younger generation wouldn't understand it. Heavens to Murgatroyd!


Who is Murgatroyd, and what has she done with Betsy?


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

Here's Betsy.





Here's Murgatroyd


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

how many times did you turn to Google to right that up?

(don't try to claim that you used an Encyclopedia)


If you really want to get a weird look from your teenager, tell them that "Africa" was originally by Toto, not Weezer.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

PBH said:


> how many times did you turn to Google to right that up?
> 
> (don't try to claim that you used an Encyclopedia)
> 
> If you really want to get a weird look from your teenager, tell them that "Africa" was originally by Toto, not Weezer.


The Weezer cover of Africa is the biggest freaking piece of crap! I heard that the other day and literally, had to stop myself from puking. Only Toto at my house. baraka mvua.


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

PBH said:


> how many times did you turn to Google to right that up?
> 
> (don't try to claim that you used an Encyclopedia)
> 
> If you really want to get a weird look from your teenager, tell them that "Africa" was originally by Toto, not Weezer.


What's Google?


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## pollo70 (Aug 15, 2016)

Straight as a crow flies !


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