And there are Fox Point (Milwaukee County) and Wind Point (Racine County), suburbs on the shore of Lake Michigan.
I know the difference between the '50s and the '70s, TYVM. But the writers of this show often don’t seem to know the difference between the '70s and the '90s. Like a few seasons ago when Donna accused Eric of “stalking” her. No one used that term in 1979.
Lamia, your last paragraph sounds pretty right.
Remember though, Bob and Midge have done a lot of experimenting in their relationship. Including being with other couples. I wouldn’t have put it past them to have done this with a black couple. They would probably want to try it for the novelty.
That’s true. And heck, Midge was in California for a while.
It explains his frizzy hair. And his distrust of The Man.
I found “stalk” used that way in The New York Times in 1980.
One appearance in an upscale publication does not put it in the vernacular.
I’m pretty sure the 1975 TV movie Death Stalk wasn’t about poisonous celery.
Well, it’s been discussed here before…
Sure. This years Christmas episode would still be set in 1979. This is a TV show. They don’t have to be chronologically accurate unless they want to.
Black males in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, in 1970: 977
In 1980: 1,440
I think they purposely avoid setting a timeline, and instead jump all over the the seventies-like in one episode, they’re going to see Star Wars which came out in 1977, and the very next episode, Gerald Ford is president, when he left office in January of that same year. It’s supposed to be vague.
Actually, Ford’s visit was during the first season. The Star Wars episode was the first-season finale. So it was a bit of a jump, but not a jump backwards.
Since the 80’s didn’t really start until 1983, I think they are safe.
What?
What’s not to understand?
Hmm, to me the 1980s began on 4 November 1979 when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was taken hostage. The rage at America’s impotence propelled Reagan into office twelve months later.
Rilchiam writes:
> But the writers of this show often don’t seem to know the difference between
> the '70s and the '90s. Like a few seasons ago when Donna accused Eric
> of “stalking” her. No one used that term in 1979.
It appears to me from what I just read in a dictionary of new words in English that the terms “stalking” and “stalker” didn’t start being used for people following other people till the early 1980’s. Furthermore, at that point the terms were used just for nobodies who followed celebrities. The terms didn’t start applying to a person following a regular person (with the idea that they could force them to fall in love with them) until the early 1990’s.
I was stalked in 1987 and stalker was not in general use to discribe this phenomenom, by 1989 it was in common use.
lee writes:
> I was stalked in 1987 and stalker was not in general use to discribe this
> phenomenom, by 1989 it was in common use.
Wow, that’s amazingly precise. How do you happen to remember that the term was generally used in 1989 but not in 1987? Excuse my scepticism, but it’s not easy to see how you could remember that a word was used 15 years ago but not 17 years ago.
A new slang word or colloquialism often occurs in speech years before it appears in print. If The New York Times first used “stalk” in that sense in 1981, it may have been already floating around in popular speech (e.g., like that of Midwestern teenagers).
It was adapted from a hunting term, after all. Who is more likely to be or know hunters, New York Times writers or Wisconsinites?
In 1987 I graduated from high school and went to college. As a result of being stalked and the sequelae, I dropped out of college that year and moved to a new town. I got married in 1989. I explained to a lot of people why I dropped out of college the first time and it became a lot easier the year I got married. I think there were some made for TV movies on the subject and some news magazine programs and day time talk shows that brought the word to common use between those times. The first year people were pretty skeptical, but by 1989, they had all heard of that sort of thing happening and were sympathetic. That is how I just happen to remember.