The 1960s had their share of expressions that a lot of kids today may not understand. For those of us who lived through that decade and were old enough to have an effective level of consciousness, we remember terms like "cool," a word that has lived on into the 21st century. Fortunately, "keen" died off.
Some others, like "going ape" and "all show and no go" are forgotten. The former meant getting excited over something and the latter described a car which was nice looking but a bit shallow in performance. The 1960s was the era of high performance cars and when the light turned green, you didn’t want that Pontiac GTO to leave your ‘57 DeSoto with typewriter drive "in the dust" as we used to say.
Probably the most irritating expression from that era was "We can put a man on the moon but we can’t (fill in whatever). Since we put a man on the moon in 1969, that was a popular expression to describe a feat that couldn’t be done on Earth. It got old quick.
Today we have some expressions that have become REALLY tiresome. For example, do you ever wish the word "dude" would be eliminated from the English language? How about when a teenage girl says "Ya know" or "like,"or "I mean" about ten times in one sentence and when she varies from those gems, replaces them with "um, uh, um" or "really." See Michelle Wie interviews for more.
Here are a few more I don’t need to ever hear again: "At the end of the day," or "Back in the day." "You go, girl" was cute for a while but enough is enough as with "Whassup?" I probably sound like I’m picking on the teenybopper girls but it wouldn’t bother me a bit if I never again heard them say "Whatever!" in their frustrated tone when they don’t get their way ("No, Erica, you can’t have the BMW tonight!")
A woman from Ohio tells me that an expression that really bugs her is "Children are a blessing from God." Her feeling is that if a woman is infertile she shouldn’t feel that she will miss being blessed by God just because she can’t have children. Then there are those who CAN have children and don’t have them. Should they be unblessed because of a lifestyle choice? I agree with the Ohio lady, it’s a silly expression.
Annoying words? How about "irregardless"? Try "regardless" instead. The "Pacific" is an ocean. Try "specific" when referring to a particular item. Finally, wouldn't it be great if no one ever said "these ones" again?
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