On CNN just now, they were leading into a story about a cow in a swimming pool. As usual the anchors played their roles with one saying "now how do you get a cow out of a swimming pool" to which the guy followed up with the glib "well answers on the back of a postcard please...." before launching into his "bit" of the story.
It made me think. How long will it take, or is it happening already, before there is a generation who might recognise and maybe even use the phrase...
" answers on the back of a postcard please "
...but don't know have a clue as to what its origins are?
And what other such phrase or saying are there out there that are in the process of passing into the same phase?
Good old New England. The cow was in a pool in the general area where I am right now -- Western Massachusetts. If there was another cow in another pool, my bad.
As to the phrase, run it through Google. It shows up quite a few times, including in a 2001 Guardian article. I will admit, though, that I have never heard it before.
I used this phrase in an online chat with a friend (native french) she had no clue what I meant by it and she's only a couple of years younger than me! So probably not long
My Nan always used to tell us to "put charlie in it" (origin unknown) when she wanted us to sit up straight - completely different meaning now!
It's obviously a caution to check things out, but the origins? I reckon it must have been some early century comedian from up north who was in in the mould of the writers of Blackadder. I can imagine in the next century phrase like " he's as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University " passing into general use
Pretty sure the "muck cart" saying comes from "ye olde days" when married couples would pass through the town on a horse drawn carriage, and throw out pennies to the entourage of kids that would inevitably follow the carriage.
The muck cart was also a cart pulled by a horse, but not quite as glamorous, as it would take away everyones rubbish.
I assume the phrase literally refers to an individual following the muck cart in the hope that someone would be throwing pennies from the back of it.
I suppose it's akin to "whistling up the wrong tree".
I have an Irish grandma who is always coming out with hilarious phrases, mainly when losing at cards!
I think my favourite has to be when you are playing a game where you can, for example, make someone pick up extra cards, and you jokingly say sorry, to which she always replies without fail "aah, ye suit yer grief", still slays me every time
Yeap...it's as well to clarify....maybe that confirms that the generation has already arrived! Or perhaps it wasn't as common in the States as it was here. Basically all TV or radio programmes would do this pre email and the lucrative SMS (I believe on Match of the Day they might still do it for "Goal of the Month" ?). Saved them having to open up envelopes searching for the right answers. And then you'd always have someone picking out the lucky winning postcard from the correct answers submitted on the following week's show.
It was always annoying in a way because we'd never never had any postcards in the house when I was young!
This generation thing is moving quicker than ever I think.The other week we were watching some old film in which someone was lost in the country, miles from anywhere. As the suspense was building my five year old piped up with "why don't they just ring someone on their phone?" Even I was explaining to him that the film was from a time when people didn't have mobiles it seemed weird to think that what I was telling him was the equivalent of what I would have been told life between the wars was like when I was his age.
< sound really ancient > I remember as a kid in the 60's and 70's watching TV or listening to the radio. When there was competition on, viewers (listeners) would be invited to submit their answers " on the back of a postcard " or on the back of a "sealed down envelope". The latter being that the folks who checked the answers didn't want to open thousands of them. I remember that I used to have a supply of fancy postcards to send in, in order to possibly catch the judges eye!! < /sound really ancient >
I wonder if the phrase...." he's about as much use as a cow in a swimming pool " will evolve from your part of the world now
One thing there was in the past which will be harder to find now and in the future... local events from which local sayings develop. That incidents probably been seen in the remotest parts of China by now thanks to the likes of CNN and Youtube.