I'm going to drop a dime on this broken record.

[+ purplekow]

Twice today the expression, "sounds like a broken record" came up and both times I thought that a lot of younger people have no idea what a broken records sounds like. In fact it really isnt a broken record more a scratched record but I digress. This led me to consider other expressions which refer to things which are outdated or no longer exist, such as records. Is there an expression that is easily substituted for a husband telling his wife that she "sounds like a broken record".

If you are going to drop a dime on someone, do the young people of today even know about telephone booths and the usual fee of 10 cents to make a local call. I do not even have a cent sign on my keyboard.

So forum members, any familar references or expressions which once had a precise reference which almost all would recognize and which now refers to something of a bygone age or which has faded into obselescence.

[jgoo]

Not sure it is used much or not, but we used to (and I still do) say that I am "flipping through the channels".....of course that refers to the rotary dials on TV sets from ages ago. I suppose that has been mostly been replaced by "surfing the channels" or something similar.

 

Another thing that comes to mind is "taping a show"....perhaps still used by some of us but probably most just say "record a show".

 

Finally, I am pretty sure it is still used and well understood by all, but certainly comes from how things worked years ago..."hang up the phone"

[+ poolboy48220]

I work with a lot of younger people. I know there are plenty of references I make that need to be explained (or just ignored :-)); my co-worker has no idea who "Captain Kangaroo" is. But off the top of my head I can't think of any phrases in that category. Now I'm going to be watching myself all day.

 

Similarly, I work with a lot of people in our Buenos Aires office. They all speak excellent English, so much that I have to catch myself about using expressions - I used 'red herring' yesterday and then wondered "do I sound crazy to them?" Fortunately, they're pretty good about checking urbandictionary.com or something similar. :-)

 

For the record, I still say 'taping' a show.

[jgoo]

Twice today the expression, "sounds like a broken record" came up and both times I thought that a lot of younger people have no idea what a broken records sounds like....

 

As a quick aside, I've heard that vinyl records are making a comeback of sorts. So who knows, maybe the younguns may start to use that phrase again.

 

http://www.gazettenet.com/news/townbytown/northampton/12849969-95/coming-around-again-once-considered-dead-vinyl-lps-making-a-comeback

[+ WilliamM]

I live in Philadelphia, a city that still has a F.Y.E. store that sells DVDs, CDs and vinyl. For the last two years, the store has more and more vinyl every month. I checked on Amazon, most new pop music releases are available on vinyl.

[maninsoma]

Just to be clear, the "broken record" idiom doesn't simply refer to a scratched record since lots of scratched records still play. A broken record is one that will not play properly because it is so damaged that the stylus can't work its way through the grooves, so what you get is that the record will reach a certain point and then keep repeating whatever is in the grooves throughout one rotation of the record. (That might not be a clear description to someone who's never played a vinyl record, but I think people of a certain age will all understand what I mean.) So the meaning of telling someone that he/she sounds like a "broken record" is merely stating that that person keeps repeating him/herself.

[bigvalboy]

I often say, roll down the window, which of course is impossible, unless you're still driving that....(fill in the blank). My parents used to say 'ice box' all the time, and every now and again, I catch myself using the phrase. Lastly I was driving with a friend the other day and we had become a little lost, and as I opened the center console, I asked him if he had a map handy. I find myself sounding more and more like my mother these days, which I find amusing.

[instudiocity]

In the little enclave I grew up in, the shopping cart is known as a buggy. "You get the buggy, I'll be in Produce."

[bigvalboy]

HAHA!! My friend says buggy.

[+ Charlie]

I think it is interesting that almost everyone still refers to "dialing" a number, even though almost no one has a phone with a dial on it any longer, and the sound on a landline phone that lets one know that one can punch in a number is still called a "dial tone."

[+ purplekow]

Just to be clear, the "broken record" idiom doesn't simply refer to a scratched record since lots of scratched records still play. A broken record is one that will not play properly because it is so damaged that the stylus can't work its way through the grooves, so what you get is that the record will reach a certain point and then keep repeating whatever is in the grooves throughout one rotation of the record. (That might not be a clear description to someone who's never played a vinyl record, but I think people of a certain age will all understand what I mean.) So the meaning of telling someone that he/she sounds like a "broken record" is merely stating that that person keeps repeating him/herself.

Yes I thought most here would know what sounding like a broken record meant, the stylus jumping and repeating the same portion of the record over and over. But I suppose, the main thrust of this thread is that these phrases have lost their context and so an explanation probably was needed. Thanks for supplying it.

[Rudynate]

Yes I thought most here would know what sounding like a broken record meant, the stylus jumping and repeating the same portion of the record over and over. But I suppose, the main thrust of this thread is that these phrases have lost their context and so an explanation probably was needed. Thanks for supplying it.

 

Oh come on. When I was a young child, people of my grandparent's generation used all kinds of old-fashioned words and expressions. We all understood them, we just didn't use them ourselves.

[instudiocity]

Oh come on. When I was a young child, people of my grandparent's generation used all kinds of old-fashioned words and expressions. We all understood them, we just didn't use them ourselves.

My grandmother said upon exiting the grocery, "Prices in there are high as a cat's back!"

 

i still imagine the prices rising as she walked past the shelves just as a cat's back arches. Before and after Granny walked by the prices were normal, but as she walked past they rose 50% or so.

[+ deej]

I think it is interesting that almost everyone still refers to "dialing" a number, even though almost no one has a phone with a dial on it any longer, and the sound on a landline phone that lets one know that one can punch in a number is still called a "dial tone."

 

"Tap a number" doesn't have as much panache, I guess. We called it "dialing" through the entire era of the touch tone phone.

 

The confused looks you'll get when you admit to once hating people that had 9's and 0's in their phone numbers can be amusing.

[+ azdr0710]

some here may remember an attempt to use the word "touch (phone number)" when push-button phones first came out.....was somewhat common, but then faded away.....

 

near my place, an interstate was completed at the height of the metric craze....it's still marked with kilometers.....

 

http://www.ktar.com/emedia/apimage/ap_044092f504958e27610f6a7067007111.jpg?filter=mynw/620x370_cropped

[tom1980]

Some phrases never go out of style; they become cliches. "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" is no longer a concern (if it ever actually was). Very few people collect eggs in baskets these days. I've never met someone who was actually "dirt poor"; even my grandparents who built their house themselves from the rocks and timber on their own land had wooden floors and slept in beds. And baking technology rendered the "upper crust" of society obsolete a century ago.

[Irtwo]

The confused looks you'll get when you admit to once hating people that had 9's and 0's in their phone numbers can be amusing.

 

That's funny. It brings back memories of people complaining when they had to dial someone with a "long number".

[Kevin Slater]

That's funny. It brings back memories of people complaining when they had to dial someone with a "long number".

 

Or calling "long distance" for that matter.

 

Kevin Slater

[gallahadesquire]

Or calling "long distance" for that matter.

 

Kevin Slater

 

211 Long Distance

411 Information

611 Telephone repair

 

Station-to-station or person-to-person?

 

You could choose your long-distance carrier, and this was a big issue!

[jgoo]

And I am sure most of us have experience with party lines. What a concept that was and probably very enjoyable for those that were very nosey and liked to eavesdrop

[nate_sf]

I live in Philadelphia, a city that still has a F.Y.E. store that sells DVDs, CDs and vinyl. For the last two years, the store has more and more vinyl every month. I checked on Amazon, most new pop music releases are available on vinyl.

 

Vinyl is definitely making a come-back. My hubby and I like to go see emerging bands at bars and small clubs, and over the past few years more and more of them have vinyl EPs and LPs at their "merch" tables. The reasons people have told us range from liking the "warm" sound of vinyl, to the ability to better control pirating, but also just the coolness/hipster factor. Of course most of us ditched our turntables within the past 10 years, just in time for vinyl to come back in vogue.

 

And yes, we are starting to see cassettes show up on the merch tables too. I haven't seen any 8-tracks though!

[tyro]

I have two turntables, but only one works.

T

[nate_sf]

Yes I thought most here would know what sounding like a broken record meant, the stylus jumping and repeating the same portion of the record over and over.

 

When I was a tiny tot we had a stack of old 45s that we'd play over and over again on our little plastic turntable. My parents told me the records had been given to them by a babysitter, and they were vintage even for the time. One of us kids' favorites was Margaret Whiting's "Only Love Can Break a Heart" but it had a big scratch or crack that made it repeat just where the orchestra was reaching a crescendo, so it would rise up, and rise up, and rise up again and again until somebody nudged the stylus. To this day if I listen to the song on youtube I expect to hear the repeating crescendo, and am surprised when it just goes right past.

[BabyBoomer]

Margaret Whiting's "Only Love Can Break a Heart"[/url] but it had a big scratch or crack that made it repeat just where the orchestra was reaching a crescendo, so it would rise up, and rise up, and rise up again and again until somebody nudged the stylus. To this day if I listen to the song on youtube I expect to hear the repeating crescendo, and am surprised when it just goes right past.

Hey Nate- Did you ever hear the version by Gene Pitney? circa 1962.

~ Boomer ~

[maninsoma]

Hey Nate- Did you ever hear the version by Gene Pitney? circa 1962.

~ Boomer ~

 

I love Gene Pitney in general, and this is one of my favorites by him. Almost melodramatic but just shy of overdoing it such that it becomes comical (with the possible exception of "Mecca"). [video=youtube;5J_QoDrNhNo]