Keep Your Trousers On!
People frequently comment to my wife about how lucky she must feel to live with such a funny guy. She says she does, but I can’t help but notice the beginnings of a grimace when she says it. It’s not that I don’t make her laugh, but I suppose, after 20 years, my “humor” can occasionally be a bit tiresome. Recently, however, I got a big laugh out of her when I innocently referred to a pair of my pants as “trousers.” Being much younger than I, it’s apparently a word she hasn’t heard since she used to watch reruns of Father Knows Best as a toddler.
I got a similar reaction from my kids a few weeks ago when I slipped up and referred to the computer as the typewriter. They looked at me as if I had suggested we march down the hill to the well to fetch some water for dinner. It appears my vocabulary has become just a bit dated, and my loved ones seem to find this phenomenon amusing.
So I’m trying to take a more modern approach when I speak around the house. In fact, about the only time I can let my guard down while talking is when I’m having conversations with my contemporaries as we sit around on the davenport. Jeepers!
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Jun '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Pat: I can relate. I'm of a certain age (grew up in 50s and 60s). I'm fairly computer literate but cannot figure out how to turn the TV on. Recording something on Tivo--forget about it. In some ways, the world has passed me by--but I'm finding that I don't care very much. And I do remember the IBM Selectric (high-tech in its day) and my beloved Smith-Corona manual that got me through college.
Jun '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Peter said jeepers on a podcast a couple weeks ago.....
and I loved it!
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
"Don't say 'odds bodkins', Percy. It's a short step from 'odds bodkins' to 'hey-nonny-nonny', and then I shall have to call the police." Perhaps that one is a bit dated.
I would like to hear someone say "Great Caesar's ghost!" Jonah has used Ron Burgundy's "Great Odin's ravens!" Closest I've come is "Jesus Christ on roller skates!" Oh, and "Numa's [round objects]!" from the Steve Saylor books.
Usually content with "swell", preferably preceded by "gee, that's".
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
I still say Mastercharge (although not BankAmericard, somehow). I get into more trouble with electronics (e.g. Walkman or LP).
Then again, I'm waiting patiently for my son to say "iPod" in about 10 or 20 years, just so I can tease him for his outdated language.
Sep '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
When I was in the Marines ('92 ~ '96), we were required to use the word 'trousers', so it's not as antiquated as your wife might think.
Of course, if you told her that we referred to running shoes as 'go-fasters', the debate in favor of using 'trousers' flies out the window!
Jul '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Dagnabit! There's nothng wrong with Trousers! "Pants" properly refer to undergarments. You know, like girdles and corsets and such.
One of the crimesof our times is the glee we take in tossing perfectly good words over the side in order to be hip. Balderdash!!!!!
Aug '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Well, at least you've got trousers. Some folks don't even get that far (don't worry, safe for work -- just silly is all).
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 6:54pmAug '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
It is the job of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s to make sure that people in their 20s, 30s and 40s hear words that are unfamiliar to them. And it is the job of people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s to learn them. Okay, consumer product-bound words will disappear and reappear for humor's sake, but the great greco-latinate words needed to be courted, romanced and caressed. This is one intimate act that the kiddies should witness. I have had supervisors at work tell me to tone the language down to 5th grade level or below when dealing with the public. (Below 5th grade? Really? What is that?) I refused, well--actually, I was not constitutionally able to comply. Frankly, I think the public and the "regulated community" that I deal with (sorry, that's how guvmunt folks thinks about you) do just fine hearing words from a true high-school and college level. People are not as dumb as the condescending regulators and educrats think. Now if I could only get my "regulated community" to spell my last name correctly on correspondence sent to me. The "m" is so critical.
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
You should learn jive, Pat. I'm sure it would suit you well.
When I was a teenager, my books of choice were old British novels from around the Victorian era. Naturally, some of the language slipped into my vocabulary. Friends looked at me quizzically, and my English teachers were not impressed. It probably didn't help that I enjoy Monty Python either.
Jul '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
That was a real knee-slapper, Sajak.
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
That is a real knee-slapper, Mr. Sajak.
But the twenty- and thirty-somethings have to be feeling the heat, too. I was reading to my four year old the other day, and he asks, "Daddy, what's a newspaper?" No reason he should know, as we haven't subscribed to one of those things (in dead tree form) for at least six years.
Jul '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Ottoman Umpire: That is a real knee-slapper, Mr. Sajak.
But the twenty- and thirty-somethings have to be feeling the heat, too. I was reading to my four year old the other day, and he asks, "Daddy, what's a newspaper?" No reason he should know, as we haven't subscribed to one of those things (in dead tree form) for at least six years. · Sep 11 at 8:31pm
Hey, at least I didn't call him "Pat".
And do you call Rob Long "Mr. Long"?
Thought not.
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 8:43pmJul '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Do not patronize Sajak. He's quite capable of adopting contemporaneous lingo.
Just the other day, I heard him refer to Governor Chris Christie as "Phat".
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
I'm really enjoying all the groovy comments.
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Patrick Shanahan: Dagnabit! There's nothng wrong with Trousers! "Pants" properly refer to undergarments. You know, like girdles and corsets and such.
One of the crimesof our times is the glee we take in tossing perfectly good words over the side in order to be hip. Balderdash!!!!! · Sep 11 at 6:36pm
And with the metrosexual rise of the word pant, surely trousers merits a comeback. I'm still waiting for zounds to come back into style.
Jul '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
By the way, Sajak: nice dungarees.
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Welcome to my world.
I'm off to the Home now (with Charley Weaver).
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Kenneth
Hey, at least I didn't call him "Pat".
And do you call Rob Long "Mr. Long"?
Thought not. · Sep 11 at 8:42pm
Edited on Sep 11 at 08:43 pm
You're right. I know Rob, so I'm privileged to call him by his first name. But I don't call him "Long."
May '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
What does it say about you when you were born in the late 60', your husband was born in the mid 50's, you utter some ancient colloquialism (from the 50's), and he looks at you like a dog looks at someone blowing a dog whistle? Hmmm... maybe it was the delivery.
Aug '10
Re: Keep Your Trousers On!
Aaron Miller:
When I was a teenager, my books of choice were old British novels from around the Victorian era. Naturally, some of the language slipped into my vocabulary. Friends looked at me quizzically, and my English teachers were not impressed. It probably didn't help that I enjoy Monty Python either. · Sep 11 at 7:50pm
That happened to me, too. I kept on getting essays sent back with "Arch" scribbled in the margins, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.
The most puzzling aspect for me was that our English teachers kept on giving us works of older authors to read as exemplars of great English, but then apparently didn't want us to use them as exemplars. Well, I eventually figured it out...
Still, I rather enjoy being a member of the Young Dinosaurs club.