# Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138 "2021-10-25T01:08:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/643 "2021-11-10T20:54:40Z")
I don’t know if the usage is universal or not, but I recall anthropologists study ‘shame cultures’ and ‘guilt cultures’. Guilt is internally imposed by an individual to sustain a societal structure, whereas shame is externally imposed by others to sustain a social structure. Seems like blushing is more indicative of internal feelings of guilt. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/644 "2021-11-10T21:23:10Z")
Oz night was also always fudge night… Mom always made a batch of REAL fudge. Those flying monkeys still freak the crap outta me. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/645 "2021-11-10T21:34:38Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > When we bought our first VCR in the early 80s, it had tiny white dials that looked like gears. It came with a little stick kind of like a toothpick that you would use to dial those little gears to program the VCR. I remember laying on the floor trying to get the channels programmed in. I think that’s what I was doing anyway! My first one had fewer dials than there were TV stations. If I remember correctly, I had to decide which tv stations to program. I left the one on the far right as a “floater”, ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/646 "2021-11-10T21:41:31Z")
“Jump in the bed of the pickup and I’ll take you to the store/school/work” StG ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/647 "2021-11-10T22:30:23Z")
We used broken bits of brick from the street paving to write on the sidewalk. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/648 "2021-11-10T23:28:40Z")
You: Mom! How cold is it outside? Mom: I don’t know, call “time & temperature”. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/649 "2021-11-11T01:12:43Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > call “time & temperature”. This was a Big Deal to us farm kids when we visited our cousins in the city. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/650 "2021-11-11T15:40:29Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > I remember one of the networks broadcasting “Peter Pan” every January. The version with Mary Martin playing Peter. I came home from work one day and was accosted by my pre-pre-school son launching himself off the back of the couch onto my shoulders. As I was processing this blur of green (felt robe and cap, belt, and tights) he yelled “I’m Mary Martin Peter Paaaaaannn!!!” . Hypno-Toad, my mom still laughs at how she could never get the coins in the toll booth basket, and we’d all end up running around the car picking up dimes, with a line of cars honking behind us. . My “something from childhood” persisted until the late 70s: a city that only used four digits for phone numbers. And this was a good-sized town. It was the county seat and a college town. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/651 "2021-11-11T15:41:08Z")
I remember throwing coins into a basket from the car at the toll booth. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/652 "2021-11-11T15:55:59Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Hypno-Toad, my mom still laughs at how she could never get the coins in the toll booth basket, and we’d all end up running around the car picking up dimes, with a line of cars honking behind us. “Somebody’s gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes.” ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/653 "2021-11-11T16:01:23Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I remember throwing coins into a basket from the car at the toll booth. My father, who passed away in the 1970s, was quite the techie for his day and age, and I’m pretty confident that he would have understood the word “transponder”. I can’t drive through an EZ-Pass without imagining a conversation in which I explain to him how it works. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/654 "2021-11-17T21:37:46Z")
When the channel knob on our “big” TV broke, we changed the channels with pliers. Fixing the knob was too expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2021, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/655 "2021-11-18T02:25:10Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > “Ben-Hur” and “The Ten Commandments” every Christmas and Easter (and only then) - _The Wizard of Oz_ was every Easter as well. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2021, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/656 "2021-11-18T06:11:58Z")
> [@Wolf333](#): > > we changed the channels with pliers. Not just pliers, channel locks. Actually vice grips, but channel lock was funnier. ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/657 "2021-11-19T15:41:01Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > SYS 49152 Another is g=c800:5, for low-level formatting that new 10, 20, or (woohoo!) 40 MB hard drive on a PC. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/658 "2021-11-19T15:52:15Z")
Fixing an electronic device by hitting it. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/659 "2021-11-19T15:58:01Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Fixing an electronic device by hitting it . I had an AM radio in my 1975 AMC Hornet. (and only an AM radio–those were the days) It would randomly start buzzing. The only thing that fixed it was a hard knock to the dashboard. Really hard. I discovered that by accident in a fit of rage one day. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/660 "2021-11-19T15:59:05Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Fixing an electronic device by hitting it AKA [Percussive Maintenance.](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/31871/percussive-maintenance) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/661 "2021-11-19T16:03:38Z")
Yeah I think my first was 20 MB. I would have to zip and un zip stuff to go from one application to another. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/662 "2021-11-19T17:05:36Z")
> [@Dogginit](#): > > 40 MB hard drive on a PC Dude, are you a sysop? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=34)