Brawn now means muscle, but it once was a kind of of headcheese. “The cat’s got into the brawn again.” What, has she bitten a hunk out of a bicep?
Still is, round here. My Granda used to love a brawn sandwich in his bait.
“Weak eyes”; I’ve never quite understood what this referred to. Was it typical mid-life onset of difficulty in focusing on printed material, or did they mean the character’s eyes were especially sensitive to bright light? Or were his/her eyes gradually failing like an old fashioned TV picture tube fading?
ETA: i know, I asked about this once, but it was a long time ago.
I was weirded out by It’s A Wonderful Life for many years as a child because of the scene between George and Mary in the sitting room. “He’s making violent love to me, Mother!”
Calhoun and his tormal Murgatroyd travel in their Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty bringing latest health advances to planets and responding to planetary plaques.
Murray Leinster was writing his short stories about the Med Service.
I will not hijack my own thread further.
Looking “pale and interesting”. I never could figure out what was interesting about being kind of wan and sickly-looking.
Referring to a woman having a “muscle-butt” as if that was an insult. Today we’d be thanking them for the complement!
Ditto using “adventurer” to describe what we’d call a “venture capitalist.”
“Turning the barrel” to mean unlocking a door.
“Apace” meaning walking quickly instead of walking together
“hobnob” meaning just a friendly chat, as opposed to socializing with the upper crust.
“Nicely” to mean with great precision, rather than the vague useless version of today which basically means “without offending.”
“Boob” a foolish person.
I think modern children would have a few questions about certain passages in “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
Seven-year-old Lord Fauntleroy, who left his American home to take his place as the heir apparent to the Earl of Dorincourt, is at a party and has made a friend of a lady there:
Similarly, I was expecting a nice evening of musical theatre when I went to The Fantasticks, only to be confronted with a Dad paying a man to rape his daughter!
Apparently, in the olden days “rape” meant “abduct”. Same with the Rape of the Sabine Women.
And then they threw some faggots into the fire… 
Interesting to think that all those adds to enlarge my penis could be about selling me a bigger boat.
There’s a passage in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey where Henry Tilney complains about people using the word “nice” as slang to mean “pleasant” instead of its proper meaning: “neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement”. It was a lost cause, though. I doubt many people today are even aware that “nice” once had this more precise meaning.
I once happened to see an old yearbooks from the 1930s that described a formal event at the university as “pompous”…and meant it as a compliment. That is, the event was a grand, dignified ceremony.
I think that basically means being kind of Goth-y.
I don’t have a cite, but I’m fairly certain that it simply means near-sighted.
100+ years ago, when a lot of people–especially poor people–worked outside, by far the most common reason people got tanned was because they couldn’t avoid it. Thus the fashion of the time was the exact opposite of what it is now.
High-society people tried very hard to avoid getting tanned, because pale skin showed that they didn’t do manual labor. Also, ladies were not supposed to be tan–only men. If you’ve ever read the Little House books, that’s a recurring theme.
“Two hundred thousands,” rather than “two hundred thousand.”
Well, where are the Martians?
(Oh dear, I hate being re-integrated)
My grade school math teacher who liked to tell stories in class seemed oblivious to the roomful of smirks and snickering when he talked about how he “pulled a boner”. He was a guy straight out of the 40s/50s, always reminded me of Paul Drake from Perry Mason.
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimen referred to “The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch” in their book, “Good Omens.”.
Awesome used to mean something that inspired awe or wonder. Now it seems to be used for anything that’s even mediocre. A good word ruined. 
Same thing happened to “genius” and “hero.”