But that’s not done by telegram, that’s done in person by military personnel.
The only one I can remember being done by telegram was in ‘A League of Their Own’, but the telegram delivery person did make it sound routine.
D’oh, now that I have actually read the link, I see that it does mention telegrams and my example.
Another Groucho line from Duck Soup: “That’ll get you ten years at Leavenworth, or Eleven years at Twelveworth. Or Five and Ten at Woolworth.”
Who the hell knows what a “five and ten” is nowadays. Or what Woolworth’s was?
Only people who know who Grouch Marx is.
BTW, I still don’t get the “darkies” joke.
It’s a song from the 1930s, and while I’ve seen the movie plenty of times, I did not get the joke until I saw it explained here because I’d never heard of the song. In fact I figured Groucho was saying “donkeys” because fortunately you don’t often hear people say “darkies” these days.
Huh. Not around here. Not a LOT of places in the South.
And it happens quite frequently on the Simpsons.
I was born and have spent most of my life in the South. Church attendance is pretty common here, but most people I know still don’t go very often.
I wasn’t aware of the song, but I assumed it was because blacks were stereotyped as doing manual labor (armstrong) and being obstinate (headstrong).
Concur. Before my buddy deployed he told his mom not to worry about him unless she saw two people at her front door in full Airforce blues.
But I do wonder how long the telegraph thing is going to last.
I suppose that would depend on the people you know, eh?
I dunno where I read this but I love older tv shows older than myself. I saw folks on a site asking why on Have Gun Will Travel, the cowboy (Paladin)'s business card read, “Wire Paladin, San Francisco” thinking his first name was Wire. 
No, Wire’s last name is “Duck.”…
The telegram thing’s been a stereotype for a long time. In 1969’s “Funny Girl”, Fanny Brice’s family is worrying up a storm when the telegram delivery guy shows up at their apartment. Why? Because when a poor family like theirs get a telegram, it’s always the death of a loved one.
A couple from Superman, Lois:
How do you spell “massacre?”
One or two “T’s” in bloodletting?
I figured the point of the post was you wouldn’t hear a character say “darkies”, unless the film was set in pre-civil rights times.
A line you won’t hear in contemporary movies: “Damn! My camera’s out of film!”
I thought it was “donkeys” as well (stubborn and physically strong). I thought it was a bit of a stretch to get to a jackass joke.
It being “darkies” makes more sense now if it was a pop culture reference.
But they could say “My drive’s full!” or “My batteries died!”
I remember reading a few years back that there were some sick fucks who apparently got their kicks by calling up families of soldiers serving in Iraq in the middle of the night and telling them that they were calling from the Army to inform them that their son (or father, sister, whoever) had been KIA’d…
It’s a bit like how horror movies have evolved from “Oh no, they’ve cut the phone lines!” to “Oh no, I don’t have any cell service!”