Why is it that some words fall out of fashion? I say this because yesterday I was moaning about a DJ on our dreadful local independent radio station who sounds like the teacher off of Charlie Brown. I was talking to this chap and said I'd heard him on 'the wireless'. To which he started laughing and said "What's a wireless, granddad?" I was quite taken aback, doesn't anyone say 'wireless' any more? My dad always used to bang on about an item on milk yields and cattle market prices "on the wireless" (not that he was a farmer, but when you listen to Radio Lincolnshire all day it becomes an obsession. Not that we lived in Lincolnshire).
It's the same whenever anyone asks me if I went to the pub to watch Forest matches, I don't believe in televisions in pubs so always tell them "I listened to it on the wireless." Cue quizzical looks all round.
My sister told me a story the other week: she was speaking to me on the phone, while she was at work, and I was asking her where I could park my car when I met with her later that evening. She replied "You know where the pictures is? Well there's a car park at the back." To which, apparently, the colleagues in her office started on her for the use of 'the pictures' the minute she put the phone down. Apparently the proper name for it now is 'cinema'. Not in my book. Mind you, to me the BT Tower will always be The Post Office Tower...
It's the same whenever anyone asks me if I went to the pub to watch Forest matches, I don't believe in televisions in pubs so always tell them "I listened to it on the wireless." Cue quizzical looks all round.
My sister told me a story the other week: she was speaking to me on the phone, while she was at work, and I was asking her where I could park my car when I met with her later that evening. She replied "You know where the pictures is? Well there's a car park at the back." To which, apparently, the colleagues in her office started on her for the use of 'the pictures' the minute she put the phone down. Apparently the proper name for it now is 'cinema'. Not in my book. Mind you, to me the BT Tower will always be The Post Office Tower...
6 comments:
I still say 'wireless', just to be a curmudgeon, basically. And 'pictures', because it's correct. I hate it when Brits say they're 'going to the movies'; my new linguistic bete noir is people who say 'ahead of' instead of 'before' on news programmes. And I even saw the word 'sidewalk' instead of 'pavement' on a British news site this week. Tut.
I've never used wireless, but I did used to say pictures.
I said to someone that so and so was probably 'worth a few bob' and they looked at me like I'd just fallen to earth.
These things are going out of fashion.
Like Clair, I hate 'the movies'. It's just not right. It's right up there with 'can I get'.
Don't get me started on "can I get?" Grrr.
I still "tape" TV and radio programmes even though it's actual via Sky+ or my PC.
Wasn't if "the flicks" before "the pictures"?
I hate it went people says that they have bought someone's new CD. No, CD is a format. It's a new "album", out on CD.
I also hate it when people ask for an A4 envelope. I have to explain that there's no such thing as an A4 envelope because an A4 piece of paper wouldn't fit in an A4 envelope because it's the same size. It's a C4 envelope for an A4 piece of paper.
I 'tape' too, it's just EASIER to say that, isn't it?
I reckon 'flicks' might be more of a regional thing. I've never heard anyone say it around here but you did used to hear it crop up on Coronation Street.
I still say 'new LP'.
I still love 'wireless' and 'pictures'. 'Radio' and 'cinema' sound dead by comparison.
And I always make a point of killing anyone I hear saying 'can I get' when they mean 'can I have'. Always.
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