“Mailing it in” is quite popular: used all the time.
How about referring to a “boner” as a mistake, or gaffe? As in, “looks like I pulled a real boner on that one!”
Hey, that was supposed to be my line! 
“The sky was the color of a television tuned to a neutral channel” - a bright, cheery blue.
(I think someone (maybe Charlie Stross?) actually used that in a book.)
When I was in high school, telling somebody “You suck!” was understood to be a reference to fellatio and pretty offensive. Now “that sucks” is pretty mild and everybody uses it.
William Gibson, the first line of Neuromancer: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” The image was Gibson’s own.
There is the supposed description of St. Paul’s Church by Queen Anne as “awful, artificial, and amusing.” It was totally complementary in its original sense of the three words – “causing awe,” “clever,” and “thought-provoking.”
Yes. I meant that someone (possibly Stross) used the “bright, cheery blue” line in another (much later) book.
Haha I remember feeling that way when I read it too.
Hooking up.
An E ticket used to be what you needed to ride the best rides at Disneyland.
Now an e-ticket is how you make a plane reservation.
I still can’t believe that the best friend on Growing Pains was named “Boner.” This was the mid-eighties, I was an early teen, and had never heard the word mean anything other than “penile erection.”
Joe
I’ve never heard the reverse version either. I’ve only ever heard it in the context of one dumbass ruining something for everyone else.
They’re two different words. The one she used is spelled “aweful.”
And “fantastic” used to mean something that is so ridiculous, it could only exist in a fantasy.
And then there’s “Type that up in triplicate,” meaning you’ll need three sheets of paper and two sheets of carbon paper.