Isn’t that awesome dude?
“WELL, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!”
Apart from when you’re watching a vintage black and white film on the wonderful Talking Pictures channel, when was the last time you heard someone say that, in reaction to surprising news? Not recently, I bet! Many old expressions are no longer in common use today.
I’m not referring to “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”, “Bring out your dead!” or one of my personal favourites “Here’s 50 pence for the pictures, Phil. And treat yourself to a choc ice!”
I mean expressions that were used for generations but are now rarely heard.
“She’s no better than she ought to be,” was one I never quite understood until I met someone for whom that description was tailor-made. She still writes…
And who amongst you can forget, “He’s not so green as he’s cabbage looking!” Most of you, I expect. When I was a youngster, an elderly relative once told me, “You want to buck your ideas up, lad!” and, following his advice, I’ve bucked up plenty of ideas over the years.
As old British expressions died out, new ones replaced them and whenever people complain about Americanisms that become part of everyday conversations, the usual retort is, “Our language is always evolving.”
That may be so, but when I hear British people describe something great as ‘Awesome!” or refer to a friend as ‘Buddy’ or ‘Dude’, it sets my teeth on edge.
And when anyone starts a sentence with “Like…” and repeats it several times, it, like, really like, annoys me.
“Rip off”, the imported American expression, originated from the rock music business when bands, who’d sold millions of records and countless concert tickets but only received a fistful of dollars for their efforts, claimed they’d been ‘ripped off’ by record companies, managers and promoters. It’s become so embedded in modern parlance there’s even a BBC TV consumer programme called “Rip Off Britain” which is presented by Gloria Hunniford, Julia Somerville and Angela Rippon.
‘You could have blown me down with a feather’ when I learned their combined age is 231. Isn’t that, like, awesome, dude?