Please pardon me for being brash, but I think I’m a very polite and well mannered person. I owe it all to my grandmother who was a real stickler for proper manners, vocabulary and elocution. Believe me, if my thank-you notes for Christmas gifts weren’t postmarked December 26 I might be cut-off completely the following year and I could hardly afford that. My grandmother was probably the reason why I didn’t learn how to be a really good cusser until I went to work in the oilfields.
People who study such things say that a language somewhere in the world becomes extinct every two weeks. Even in America we’re losing words at an alarming rate and while I think it’s good that the “n” word is used less and less, it saddens me not to hear words like persnickety, cahoots and horsefeathers any more. Regarding our present sad, sickly state, we need to round up all the doctors who had anything to do with curing “cooties” and making that word disappear from the American lexicon and replacing it with COVID 19.
Listen to the way today’s teenagers talk and you’ll realize we’re witnessing the death of chivalry in this country. Here are ten words or phrases that are more endangered than all the monkey tree frogs and fanged bats combined.
#10 Hello or Goodbye- On my daily walks I often pass others and only about 20% of them bother to acknowledge my existence in any way. Mostly it’s because they have earbuds in their ears listening to rap music or they are too busy yelling at their smart phones. When I was a kid we got a kick out of using creative ways to say “goodbye” and used phrases like, “See you later alligator,” “After awhile crocodile,” and “See you around like a donut.”
#9 I’m Sorry- Heavens to Murgatroyd, I haven’t heard anyone take responsibility for anything they said or did since I was knee high to a grasshopper.
#8 Excuse me- This is a derivative or subspecies of the phrase “come again.” Now days teenagers are more apt to say, “What chew talking about?”
#7 Thank You- The last time I got a thank you note in the mail was during the Nixon administration. And e mail
thank you’s don’t count because they are too easy. To show real appreciation you should have to look for a Hallmark card, buy a stamp and go to the Post Office.
#6 No, thank you- This idiom has been replaced by, “Get lost.” Or, “For the hundredth time, please tell your computer to quit robo-calling me and take my name off your list.”
#5 How are you? This query used to show one’s sincere interest in a person’s physical well being. Now it’s only heard when the beneficiary of an elderly, sick rich person wants to know when you intend to bite the dust and if there was anything said recipient could do to hasten such an outcome.
#4 Your welcome- This phrase went out with Betamax, get the lead out, cut a rug, soda jerks and hobos. The updated version is: “No problemo.”
# 3 Let me get that for you- This phrase was last heard in 1987 and was used when a man would open the door for a lady, or a bus full of ladies from the rest home. A gentleman did this even if it meant not getting his favorite seat by the window because one of the ladies took it.
#2 I beg your pardon- This was used by the older, more well-bred and civilized people of my youth. We on the playground used an alternative phrase: “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” This polite expression is older than Methusala and was used when someone said or did something that flabbergasted you. Since no one is “flabbergasted” any more, or has any idea of who Methusala is, people just say: “Chew messin’ with me, man?”
#1 Please- A polite request as in, “PLEASE Mister Big Shot, would you turn off that obnoxious phone or go outside to talk. I’m trying to enjoy a $45 lunch with my wife and don’t need to know about your booming business, your sorry sex life or your otherwise egotistical existence.
