|
Retrotalk
My son Scott – who was born just after the
worlds’ worst nuclear power disaster – once asked, “Who’s this Cher Noble I keep hearing about?”
It’s a rare parent who hasn’t been confronted with such verbal
confusion. “You sound like a broken record,” for example, doesn't make
much sense to a generation that grew up with iPod buds in their ears Terms
such as “stuck in a groove,” and “flip side” could also be puzzling.
Today's Gen-whatevers may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, why 1984 was a year
unlike any other, or how to get to Peyton Place.
Think of this as retrotalk. Retrotalk is a slippery slope of
puzzling allusions to past phenomena. Such allusions take the form of
retroterms, linguistic artifacts that hang around in our national
conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped into the
sunset. This could be a person, product, past bestseller, sporting
event, acronym, or advertisement long forgotten. We all use the
catchphrase Cha-ching!, for example, but few realize that this slang
term for money was introduced in a 1992 ad for the Rally’s hamburger
chain.
Our discourse is filled with such allusions. American talk includes
repeated reference to things “we've all heard of.” Except many of
us haven't. Those who were born after what’s alluded to took place, who
grew up in another country, or simply don’t get the reference are left
out in the conversational cold. When a newspaper article
included the line, “And by the way, have you stopped beating your wife?”
one outraged reader wrote to ask why the paper would pose such an off-the-wall
question. (Lawyers consider it the classic illustration of a question
that can’t be answered without self-incrimination.)
Retrotalk tells the story behind words and phrases that we’re all
thought to know about but may not. Even familiar terminology can have a more interesting origin story than is widely
known. “Skeleton in the closet,” for example, may originate in an old
English yarn about an unfaithful wife whose husband made her kiss the
skeleton of her onetime lover whom he’d put in a closet. Retrotalk
is full of those stories. They explain where retroterms came from and
why they’ve stuck around. Mrs. Robinson, the seductive character Anne
Bancroft played in "The Graduate" is far more evocative than “an
older woman who seduces a younger man.” Cootie is much more fun to say
than “lice,” zipless better than “spontaneous sexual activity.” Yet many
who use such terms don’t realize that the former originated as World War
I soldier slang, or that the latter comes from Erica Jong’s 1973 novel
Fear of Flying.
Although meticulously researched, the tone of Retrotalk is
casual. This book is like a friend explaining the context of puzzling
terms, an affable tutor clarifying not just the meaning of
you-had-to-be-there concepts but the background that gives them meaning.
An introductory chapter on the prevalence of retroterms and their
powerful appeal is followed by a consideration of old stories, jokes and
legends that have left phrases behind in our language (e.g., “drop the
other shoe,” “stick to your last”). Subsequent chapters consider retroterms that grow out of children’s games, comic strips, radio shows,
movies, commerce, politics, and events of the 1950s and 1960s that gave
rise to such terms as “paint-by-numbers,” and “drink the Kool-Aid.” A
concluding chapter considers The Future of Retrotalk. |
