"HEAVEN'S TO MURGATROYD !"
( or, the words we left behind )
This expression "hit me" over the holidays when an old friend exclaimed it while watching a
spectacular play in a football game. This led me to try and find out who, where or what indeed
"Murgatroyd" was. Would you believe the online spell checker didn't even recognize the word?
I then started to think how obsolete some words and/or phrases have become since my childhood. I assume this because of the inexorable march of technology. Some of these "lost
words" include: "don't touch that dial", "carbon copy", "hung out to dry", "you sound like a
broken record"...and that's just the start of a bevy of faded linguistics. Back in the olden days
we'd put on our best "bib and tucker" and "straighten up &and fly right"."Hubba Hubba"! We'd"cut a rug in some juke joint" then go "petting, or necking while billing & cooing or.. pitching woo in hot rods or jalopies in some passion pit or lover's lane". Heavens to Betsy!
"Gee whillikers!" "Jumpin' Jeshosaphat!" "Holy Moley!". We were "in like Flynn" and "living the life of Riley", and not even a "regular guy" could accuse us of being a "knucklehead or nincompoop or a pill". Not for "all the tea in China!". Yes, back in the day, things were "swell"
which hasn't been used in decades. "Swell" has gone way of pageboys, spats, knickers & poodle skirts. "Oh, my aching back". "Kilroy was here"...but he wasn't. We have become unstuck in time.
We wake up from what has surely been a short nap, and before we can say: "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 were as omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished! Poof! Gone! The words we left
behind...erased from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse
watches, Hula Hoops and little wax bottles. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time
passing. Ahh "Pshaw"! Were they "banned in Boston"? Were they "bigger than a breadbox?"
The very idea! "It's your nickel". "Knee high to a grasshopper". "Turn-of-the-century". "You
look like the wreck of the Hesperus". "Fiddlesticks!" "Cooties". "Don't take any wooden
nickels". "See ya in the funny papers" and Awaa-aa-y we go!". Oh my "Stars and garters!"
It turns out there are more of these lost words and phrases than "Carter has liver pills!"
Disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth...words that lodge in our heart's
deep core. We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. Now we have the
perspective of time to look back and have the advantage of remembering that there were once
words which "strutted their stuff" on the Earthly stage and now are heard no more...except
in our collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can "have
archaic and eat it too". So, go "put another nickel in the nickelodeon" we'll "see ya later
alligator"!
-These words left behind by Gary Allyn
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