Ice box. Antenna. HiFi. Pedal pushers. Ring any bells?
If they do, here’s why. Whether you say “ice box” or
“refrigerator,” most people know what you mean. But the
original ice box was exactly what it sounds like: a wooden
box to hold perishable food, kept cold by an actual block
of ice. If you tend to use this term, there’s a good chance
you grew up during the 1930s or even earlier. By the
1950s the electric food cooling machine had become
known as the refrigerator or even “the fridge.”
The “antenna” became part of our vocabulary in the
1950s. How else could folks with a new-fangled television
set get a strong enough signal to watch Howdy Doody or
Ed Sullivan? And if you remember those early days of TV,
you probably also recall “rabbit ears,” the indoor antennas
that sat on top of your black and white set. Some
people still remember attaching strips of aluminum foil to
the “ears” to improve the reception. Did it really work? I
have no idea. How old do you think I am?
As for hi-fi (or high fidelity), this was the beginning of
advances in quality of recorded music. This led to stereo,
which led eventually to iPods and whatever else is
out there today. (I quit trying to keep up with technology
right after the iPhone – which dates me as definitely premillennial,
if not prehistoric.)
But the last item on the list at the beginning of this
column – pedal pushers – is what gives me hope. I can
remember my mother wearing these cutoff at the knees
slacks in the late 1940s. These then new fashion items
were strictly for casual wear. Heaven forbid a woman
wore them to shop or attend meetings. I never thought
they were very flattering. Flash forward now to the early
1960s. That was when pedal pushers turned into “Capri
pants.” I was just starting college and these were super
popular. They were more fitted than their predecessors
and a little longer, I think. Just picture Mary Tyler Moore
on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” As Laura Petrie, she
helped popularize this new version of pedal pushers.
Years went by. We entered the 21st century. We also
entered the era of the cutoffs/culottes/whatever pants.
What goes around, comes around. Or as I think of it,
here come those stupid pedal pushers AGAIN!
The message in this column is that what you
call something can reveal more about you than you
may realize. Post WW11, baby boomer, GenXer,
millennial or whatever you call yourself, your choice
of words will give you away if you aren’t careful.
And then there are those of us who just don’t really
care . . .
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OUR WORDS CAN GIVE AWAY OUR AGE
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