I recently saw a marriage certificate.of a 36yo mand and a 34yo woman. The man was listed as 'bachelor,: and the woman was listed as ‘spinster.’..I think there’s mental image of a spinster as an ‘old maid,’ so it was interesting to see a relatively new document (~100 or so years old) using it in the original sense.
Unfortunately I don’t recall whether I came across it myself or whether I saw it on ‘Finding Your Roots.’
Crone has been reclaimed somewhat. Women of a certain age identify as crones, and it seems to have positive connotations. I don’t know how widespread that is, but common enough in my circle. No male equivalent.
That term is used to describe a specific subset of women, but it doesn’t really connote age, especially advanced age. It means a shrill, quick-to-complain woman who wants to see the manager.
Men can be Karens too. But absent a qualifier like “male Karen”, then yeah, she’s a she.
aren’t “male Karens” … Elons?
Oh, lots of people still use pipes. It’s just that today, they are made of glass. Oh, and nobody puts tobacco in them.
Speaking of pipes, I don’t think youngsters are saying that singers have a great set of pipes much anymore, if at all. It’s a saying related to those big church organs that were more common in days gone by, now they have electric sound systems in smaller settings.
Now they just say that a singer has quite a set of lungs.
My wife almost never carries a purse and hasn’t for years. If it can’t be carried in a pocket of her jeans or slacks or can’t be carried by her personal Sherpa with his cargo pants (me), it ain’t worth carrying. (Unless we have one of the grandkids- good grief, you need a lot of stuff for them!)
Mass killers no longer chant “acid is groovy, kill the pigs”.* That’s so dated.
*the phrase convicted killer Jeffrey MacDonald claimed that intruders were chanting when they supposedly murdered his wife and children. Even in 1970, “groovy” had pretty much lost its cool.
“Nobody” is carrying a lot of freight there.
I’m assuming that wood paneling to decorate your living room was cool once, because I remember a lot of people having it when I was a kid, but these days, if I see it in a movie or TV show, it’s shorthand for “this person is broke and/or has no taste.”
It was absolutely “the thing” in middle-class America in the 1970s.
Hey, in a deeply bitter and cynical sense, I can totally see part of that phrase coming back to coolness. With far more justification.
I still like the look. My contractor refused to put it in my den, citing how dated it looks, and we went with off-white plaster walls and natural wood-colored trim around the windows and doors. That was 30 years ago.
To me the funny thing about 1970s wood paneling (and yes, my parents’ house had some too) is that is was a cheap mass market copy of the sort of real wood-covered walls that were the height of luxury in e.g. the 1880s to 1920s. Fatcats’ drawing rooms and private clubs had richly finished real wood plank walls. Ordinary people had plaster and lath.
So 1970s middle class adults were aping their grandparents’ era fatcats.
I wonder what things middle class middle-aged (WAG 25-40) people do today that are aping their grandparents’ betters of the 1970s?
Apparently, sunken living rooms are chic again:
We had one in a home we were renting- bad idea. Great way to have a nasty fall.
Interesting. For sure a big 3-sided couch, whether sunken or not is great for a party / conversation, but sux if everyone wants to watch the TV on one wall or in one corner.
The advent of 10 people getting together to all stare at their phones says the semi-circular couch is no longer a liability when the conversation lags and folks want to watch something. Besides, the home theater with the popcorn machine and the big recliners in staggered rows is just down the hall on the left.
My living room (1910s) has this. I love it.
I was of the “one shoulder” age group. Wearing a pack like designed was terminal dork-itis.
I do wonder what the transition period was like. Did it change immediately all at once over one summer, or one day, or was there overlap? And who decided?
This article says it started in the mid-90s, with “the real sea change” happening about ten years later: