“I picked up the telephone and hit him with it.”
40 years ago, you would be inflicting cracked ribs or a concussion.
Nowadays, the intended victim would most likely be saying, “you’re kidding, right?”
My fellow Dopers, do you have any examples of sentences or phrases that, over time, technology or society have twisted almost beyond recognition?
Is that a common phrase where you come from?!
The Flintstones purported to be having a gay old time.
“I’m the one who wears the pants here”.
(meaning : I’m taking authority on a family decision.
Last used in 1965 or so, methinks)
“stop repeating yourself like a broken record!”
I heard this in1985, and thought it was archaic even then. We had progressed to tapes !!
Making love used to mean act charmingly toward, not engage in coitus. I recall being mildly surprised when a little girl in the Chronicles of Narnia was described as “making love” to everyone in the castle of the giants.
“Dollars to donuts” is losing most of its emphasis. Soon its meaning will flip.
An older one: “Phony as a two dollar bill” had to be updated to “Phony as a three dollar bill” when the U.S. started making two dollar bills.
From Wikipedia:
The two dollar bill isn’t phony, and has never been phony in my lifetime. What it HAS been is rare. And the phrase I always heard was “queer as a three dollar bill”, and in fact, I’ve seen bills that have been altered to show a denomination of three bucks, and with various unpopular people depicted. I remember specifically seeing these bills for sale at truck stops, with Clinton’s portrait on them. Yes, this is legal, as long as the bills aren’t altered to a higher denomination. I’ve also seen Bunny Bucks and Santa Bucks for sale…it’s just a single with a picture of the Easter Bunny or Santa on the bill.
CC me on that when you send it.
(Although, I won’t be expecting any document that was created using carbon paper).
.
Back to telephones for a minute …
In the '80s Eddie Murphy had a song out called, I believe “In Your Butt”, in which he described the ridiculous things that could be placed up the wazoo and sung about for money. One of these things was indeed a telephone.
If you watch any of the prison shows on cable, you know that telephones up the butt is actually something that the guards have to be on a constant lookout for nowadays.
I wasn’t an adult when “Cum on Feel the Noize” came out. Was the other meaning of the first word as common back then as it is now? If so, how did it even reach the airwaves without huge fines?
Drop a dime?
I was an adult, and it was just considered a misspelling. Note that “come” could be construed with a sexual meaning back then, too.
As for phrases: “You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.”
Drop a dime still means “to contact” or “to inform on.” It’s just that its meaning is more clearly metaphorical now that pay phones are nearly extinct and the few that exist cost more than a dime per call.
Yes, it was. Even when Slade put it out the FIRST time. I remember being puzzled by this too.
This was in the 70s, by the way. - YouTube
“Cum” is just a vulgar stylization of “come.” It still has the same meaning today.
“It is better to be a Mayan during the great rain festival than an Aztec venerating before Huitzilopochtli.”
Words to live by.
“Scum” used to refer to semen, and “scumbag” meant essentially a used condom (I don’t know if people commonly called actual used condoms “scumbags,” but to call a person a scumbag meant that he was as disgusting as a used condom.) Nowadays this meaning has pretty much been forgotten and while the term is still insulting, it doesn’t pack the same punch.
Raining cats and dogs.
In tornado season, it actually does!
I think that the OP was looking for common phrases which have changed meanings!
Best wishes,
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I’ve never heard the first one, except on a tv show.