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29 Outdated Words And Phrases Some Older Folks Use That Puzzle Millennials And Gen Zers In This Online Group
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are having a conversation with someone and they use a word or a phrase that you haven’t heard of and have no idea what it means? There are some people who like to use more colorful language and revive words that are no longer used or have changed their meaning throughout time. If you still feel lost when you hear some archaic word or phrase, you are not alone as one Reddit user, @SunRevolutionary8315, asked other people online “What is an outdated word or phrase an older family member uses that makes your brain hurt?” Soon people started sharing sayings their parents, grandparents and other older relatives use in their everyday language and trying to explain the meaning behind these words. So if you’re also looking for ways to expand your vocabulary, the post with more than 34k upvotes is a great source of knowledge.
Do you know someone in your family who also likes to puzzle you with outdated language? Don’t forget to share it in the comments down below!
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My late father (born in '33) used to say he'd been "d**ked by the dangling dong of destiny" when something went wrong that was out of his control.
I will be adopting this phrase, going into effect immediately. Thank you!
When I was a kid and we had a slow start to our day my mother would say “we’re off like a herd of turtles” still makes me smile
There was an older gentleman, about 70, that I used to work with that looked at me and said “His butter done slid off his biscuit” referring to another coworker acting crazy. I’m in southern Kentucky.
My grandpa likes to use the phrase "not my monkey, not my circus"
to everyone asking if he's Polish, we're Latino. He says it in both Spanish and English, "no es mi circo, no son mis monos". I didn't realize until writing it out that he flips the order in English.
answers the phone
“Yellow!”
Better than the early 2000s, when the standard phone greeting was "WHAZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!?"...
Went into a speed shop the other day and overheard the shop owner talking to someone on the phone. Man was 60+ and said un-ironically "Catch ya on the flip side Daddio" to end the conversation he was having.
You can call me anything you like except late for dinner!
I use this all the time and my wife tells me that’s something only old men say
“If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas”
My nana says “That really turns me on” about ANYTHING. Good ice cream, a movie, music, doesn’t matter.
"Davenport" to mean couch. Apparently, it was a name-brand couch back in the day.
Ditto with mine. I sometimes say it, as well, and my husband thinks I made it up.
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My grandparents called it a "divan." (From Persian, meaning "bench." No, my grandparents were not Persian.)
It was a name brand. Googled... "Davenport was the name of a series of sofas made by the Massachusetts furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport and Company, now defunct. Due to the popularity of the furniture at the time, the name davenport became a genericized trademark in parts of the United States."
Chesterfields are mainly leather with a low back and deep button tufting and usually associated with dusty old English gentlemens clubs and manor houses.
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I'm so old when I first heard the word futon -I looked for it in the dairy case!
my mom used to say "go sit out on the davenport" when the grandkids were little, they thought the davenport was the porch
My grandmother had a family room that everyone called the davenport.
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I worked with a lot of Canadians in the early 90's. Their word for couch was "chesterfield".
No, a davenport is a small sofa that when you lift the seat/bench until it clicks, it moves forward, the back goes flat and it converts to a double bed.
Mostly in the NE United States. Davenport was the name of a series of sofas made by the Massachusetts furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport and Company, now defunct. Due to the popularity of the furniture at the time, the name davenport became a genericized trademark in parts of the United States.
That was a fairly common thing when I was growing up. To some people back then, all refrigerators were Frigidaires, all cola drinks were Coke, all tissues were Kleenex, and so on.
That's what my parents called it too. I never questioned it. They were born in 1920's.
My mom called the couch a "chesterfield," which I later learned refers only a particular kind of couch with curved arms.
I always wondered where that came from - my Mother in Law uses it.
I had trouble with this. There's a Davenport, Iowa, and the last name of friends of my family was Davenport. I always understood it to mean a low flat thing that had only a back, and no arms.
My great grandma always said that too. “Go sit on the Davenport while I run the sweeper”
I remember when davenport meant couch, but I never knew it was a brand name. Also, sofa...does anyone still use sofa for couch?
My mom was not a fan of colorful language, I can't recall ever hearing an f-bomb escape her lips. But if she was mad at someone, she would say "They can just go piss up a rope!" I still don't know WTF she meant.
My dad used to say “That’ll put lead in your pencil”.
That's got to be right up there with, "That'll put hair on your chest!", which always bugged me seeing as I was a chick, lol.
My mother used to say "he's got his wobbly boots on" whenever she saw someone drunk.
When you put something in your mouth it's really hot and react.
Que grandma "well it wasn't cooked on a f*****k sewing machine"
wonder if your grandma has latino roots? Sewing machines and to-saw, in castellano & spanish is 'máquina cosedora' / 'coser' (which is very simmilar to 'cocer' /to cook
When talking about drinking, my dad says "I got plowed the other night" rather than "I got drunk the other night"
I have a friend, about 15 years older than me, who constantly says s**t like "bump uglies".
My mom is 71, she says things are cool. But she pronounces it like kewel, or kyoul.
She’s only five years older than I am and one of my faves is “cool beans”
"The devil's been beatin' his wife"- when the sun is out but it's still raining. I heard this a lot growing up but apparently some people have never heard of it?
There's a very old English proverb that goes something like, If it rains while the sun is shining, the devil is beating his wife with a leg of mutton. It's so weird I've never forgotten it.
My grandma would say “bull feathers” instead of bulls**t
My older relatives in Michigan (all passed away now) used to say Geez-O-Pete instead of Jesus Christ, I guess so as not to blaspheme? Who f**king knows?
My dad still talks about "The Japs!" Like he fought in world war 2. But he's too young and also not American.
I hate when old people ask “can you whack this off for me”
For $20 anything is possible tho
"technically, sir, if I whacked it off for you, it wouldn't be called whacking off..."
My coworker says "It's hotter than a blistered d**k in a wool sock"
50/50 chance my mom is gonna say “and we’re off like a dirty shirt” when leaving an establishment.
I kinda like it though
My favorite is “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” I like it so much that I had a Swedish person tell me how to say it, so now I say (this is a transliteration since I have now idea how it it would be spelled in Swedish) the upper-case letters are said in a higher tone than the lower-case ones (apparently this matters) “Lo-TOOS spreng-A det-TA EES-glass stahnd...or, in the language of my people, Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
grandpa: says narcist instead of narcissist. apparently back in the day that was normal
grandma: if wishes were fishes we’d have a big fry
"If wishes were Porsches, beggars would drive" ---- my mom having twisted "If wishes were horses".
My mom says she’s “gotta go tink tink” instead of to the bathroom.
I called it tinkle once and my husband was like, "You are an adult, not a child".
Note: this post originally had 34 images. It’s been shortened to the top 29 images based on user votes.
"If it was a snake it woulda bit you," when it takes a minute to notice something. My grandma always said it and now my mom does.
Oh Lord I can hear my grandmother saying that! Thank you!
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Had a math professor in college - very nice older Texan woman - who, when talking about someone of...lesser intelligence, would say "He wouldn't now how to pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel!"
I have a question!! How do the older women in your country refer to menstruation? I've heard so many different versions and the most weird are "she has her clothes" (don't even know what that even means) and the classic "the Russians are coming" which I never liked as an expression.
Older women in the Netherlands do not speak much about menstruation. I've heard "Being on the rag." (which seems to have it's origin from the time where women had to sew the pads themselves) and "Waving the red flag."
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Drinking the Kool Aid. Heard a co-worker say it recently and I was like, "You know most of them just got straight cyanide because they didn't have enough kool-aid." My co-workers all looked at me like I was nuts. The person who said "drinking the kool-aid" asked what I was talking about. None of them knew it was a reference to Jim Jones. Always find it neat that we can adapt sayings that will become more popular and longer lasting that what the saying references. Like letting the cat out of the bag, looking a gift horse in the mouth, dead ringer, saved by the bell, etc.
For some reason, my dad has always said "it's colder than a witches tit in a brass bra on the dark side of the moon." We live in North Dakota so when that phrase was uttered, we knew it was COLD cold.
A relative of mine would not stop calling her sandals "thongs". She announced to a group once she needed to "put on her thongs!" before we left her house.
i don't know where you're from in the US, but i've heard of them referred to as thongs or flip flops interchangabely. It seems to be regional.
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Generational sayings. They are no more annoying than the youth of today always putting in a completely unnecessary "Like" in a sentence or starting a sentence with "So".
Ooh does this mean I'm still a youth?? I'm so used to being called an Elder Millennial.
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At least back then people spoke in complete sentences that were grammatically correct.
I know someone who has favourite saying when she is hungry, "I could eat the crutch off a low flying duck".
I always heard 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse' but an Australian soap opera once taught me an alternative: 'eat a horse, chase the rider'.
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My grandad is from Lancashire and says ‘ey up’ and ‘ey up, duck’ all the time 😄 also a few older people i know call me duckie or duck which is sweet 🦆
'Duck' is still used in parts of Lancashire. In Glasgow, it's 'hen'. In Sheffield, everyone can be addressed as 'love' but in Cornwall, it's 'my lovely'.
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Ask my coworker how he's doing and he would say, "finer than frog's hair".
The main one I can think of I only really ever heard from my grandad, but he always called my grandmother "Mata". Pronounced mate with a long "a"added to the end.
I had a friend who, instead of saying "For the love of god!" would say, "For the love of corn!" It made me giggle.
How dare they use the language they've always used! They need to jump on your trends instead! One of the biggest reason people come jump with new stupid things to say is that they want to be different from old people. So they can then complain, I guess.
My Spanish teacher says "the speed of a thousand gazelles"
My mom has always said, "Deader than a popcorn fart" to refer to a place that's quiet with no activity. That always sounded weird to me, so I finally googled it, and the saying is actually, "DRIER than a popcorn fart", which has nothing to do with activity. I haven't the heart to tell her...
My grandparents were full of colloquialisms: Gotta go see a man about a horse/dog (going to the bathroom). Oh, go pound salt (to get rid of someone annoying you/trying to argue with you). He/She's about a half a bubble off plumb (not quite mentally /emotionally 100%).
I was a quiet child, and dad would say, "She wouldn't say s**t if she had a mouth full of it." Decades later I came up with a funny come-back: "Yeah, I guess that's why mom's cooking never improved." Never had the courage to say it though, and anyways mom was a pretty good cook.
If someone is being annoying or a bit of a dickhead in my family they were told to "Go soak ya head"
My grandpa never cursed. If he wanted to say a bad word he'd say, "oh shickelgroober"
My mum calls her cupboard that has all her spare towels, sheets, xmas decorations etc her 'glory hole'
My grandmother for some reason hated the term "I wonder" She'd say don't wonder 'till bird s build bests up your ass then you can wonder how they go the sticks there. Never knew why she hated this term. The one term that really drives me nuts is when your talking to someone and they say "WHATEVER" in an offhanded manner!
Tin foil. Can you tell me where I can find tin foil. People look at me funny
Long in the tooth (very old). Knee-high to a grasshopper (very young).
Slower than molasses, dumber than a doorpost, not the brightest bulb in the bunch, shake a leg, move it or lose it
I got a couple... "wish in one hand, s**t in another and tell me which one fills up first." "Not the brightest crayon in the box." It's raining cats and dogs. Up s**t creek without a paddle.
I had a friend that said "whatever turns your biscuits" for "whatever makes you happy". Always cracked me up.
I used to hear: "You can get glad in the same shoes you got mad in!"
My mom always says "Pin a rose on your nose" and it means well, aren't you special? She also uses the phrase "the bees knees" way too often. Born in 1947.
I'm 51 and use some 70s slang like Right On, Swell, Solid, etc... My 16 yo son has discovered 80s slang like gnarly and rad
Make sure he knows about fer sher, and gag me (with a spoon).
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My grandpa had tons of these… flip flops were Japanese motorcycle riding boots, pencils were wu-wus, both my grandma and grandpa would say “I’ll go see a man about a horse” for going to the bathroom. “If it doesn’t come out right, make like a mathematician and work it out with a pencil” was the next part of that.
I think this is one of those articles that needs renaming. Only about 10 of them weren't obvious what they meant so "make your brain hurt" isn't a great descriptor
"If it was a snake it woulda bit you," when it takes a minute to notice something. My grandma always said it and now my mom does.
Oh Lord I can hear my grandmother saying that! Thank you!
Load More Replies... Had a math professor in college - very nice older Texan woman - who, when talking about someone of...lesser intelligence, would say "He wouldn't now how to pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel!"
I have a question!! How do the older women in your country refer to menstruation? I've heard so many different versions and the most weird are "she has her clothes" (don't even know what that even means) and the classic "the Russians are coming" which I never liked as an expression.
Older women in the Netherlands do not speak much about menstruation. I've heard "Being on the rag." (which seems to have it's origin from the time where women had to sew the pads themselves) and "Waving the red flag."
Load More Replies... Drinking the Kool Aid. Heard a co-worker say it recently and I was like, "You know most of them just got straight cyanide because they didn't have enough kool-aid." My co-workers all looked at me like I was nuts. The person who said "drinking the kool-aid" asked what I was talking about. None of them knew it was a reference to Jim Jones. Always find it neat that we can adapt sayings that will become more popular and longer lasting that what the saying references. Like letting the cat out of the bag, looking a gift horse in the mouth, dead ringer, saved by the bell, etc.
For some reason, my dad has always said "it's colder than a witches tit in a brass bra on the dark side of the moon." We live in North Dakota so when that phrase was uttered, we knew it was COLD cold.
A relative of mine would not stop calling her sandals "thongs". She announced to a group once she needed to "put on her thongs!" before we left her house.
i don't know where you're from in the US, but i've heard of them referred to as thongs or flip flops interchangabely. It seems to be regional.
Load More Replies... Generational sayings. They are no more annoying than the youth of today always putting in a completely unnecessary "Like" in a sentence or starting a sentence with "So".
Ooh does this mean I'm still a youth?? I'm so used to being called an Elder Millennial.
Load More Replies... At least back then people spoke in complete sentences that were grammatically correct.
I know someone who has favourite saying when she is hungry, "I could eat the crutch off a low flying duck".
I always heard 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse' but an Australian soap opera once taught me an alternative: 'eat a horse, chase the rider'.
Load More Replies... My grandad is from Lancashire and says ‘ey up’ and ‘ey up, duck’ all the time 😄 also a few older people i know call me duckie or duck which is sweet 🦆
'Duck' is still used in parts of Lancashire. In Glasgow, it's 'hen'. In Sheffield, everyone can be addressed as 'love' but in Cornwall, it's 'my lovely'.
Load More Replies... Ask my coworker how he's doing and he would say, "finer than frog's hair".
The main one I can think of I only really ever heard from my grandad, but he always called my grandmother "Mata". Pronounced mate with a long "a"added to the end.
I had a friend who, instead of saying "For the love of god!" would say, "For the love of corn!" It made me giggle.
How dare they use the language they've always used! They need to jump on your trends instead! One of the biggest reason people come jump with new stupid things to say is that they want to be different from old people. So they can then complain, I guess.
My Spanish teacher says "the speed of a thousand gazelles"
My mom has always said, "Deader than a popcorn fart" to refer to a place that's quiet with no activity. That always sounded weird to me, so I finally googled it, and the saying is actually, "DRIER than a popcorn fart", which has nothing to do with activity. I haven't the heart to tell her...
My grandparents were full of colloquialisms: Gotta go see a man about a horse/dog (going to the bathroom). Oh, go pound salt (to get rid of someone annoying you/trying to argue with you). He/She's about a half a bubble off plumb (not quite mentally /emotionally 100%).
I was a quiet child, and dad would say, "She wouldn't say s**t if she had a mouth full of it." Decades later I came up with a funny come-back: "Yeah, I guess that's why mom's cooking never improved." Never had the courage to say it though, and anyways mom was a pretty good cook.
If someone is being annoying or a bit of a dickhead in my family they were told to "Go soak ya head"
My grandpa never cursed. If he wanted to say a bad word he'd say, "oh shickelgroober"
My mum calls her cupboard that has all her spare towels, sheets, xmas decorations etc her 'glory hole'
My grandmother for some reason hated the term "I wonder" She'd say don't wonder 'till bird s build bests up your ass then you can wonder how they go the sticks there. Never knew why she hated this term. The one term that really drives me nuts is when your talking to someone and they say "WHATEVER" in an offhanded manner!
Tin foil. Can you tell me where I can find tin foil. People look at me funny
Long in the tooth (very old). Knee-high to a grasshopper (very young).
Slower than molasses, dumber than a doorpost, not the brightest bulb in the bunch, shake a leg, move it or lose it
I got a couple... "wish in one hand, s**t in another and tell me which one fills up first." "Not the brightest crayon in the box." It's raining cats and dogs. Up s**t creek without a paddle.
I had a friend that said "whatever turns your biscuits" for "whatever makes you happy". Always cracked me up.
I used to hear: "You can get glad in the same shoes you got mad in!"
My mom always says "Pin a rose on your nose" and it means well, aren't you special? She also uses the phrase "the bees knees" way too often. Born in 1947.
I'm 51 and use some 70s slang like Right On, Swell, Solid, etc... My 16 yo son has discovered 80s slang like gnarly and rad
Make sure he knows about fer sher, and gag me (with a spoon).
Load More Replies... My grandpa had tons of these… flip flops were Japanese motorcycle riding boots, pencils were wu-wus, both my grandma and grandpa would say “I’ll go see a man about a horse” for going to the bathroom. “If it doesn’t come out right, make like a mathematician and work it out with a pencil” was the next part of that.
I think this is one of those articles that needs renaming. Only about 10 of them weren't obvious what they meant so "make your brain hurt" isn't a great descriptor
