Saturday, a Day for Favorite Things: Part I

"Whiskers on kittens"

Was it the cat's meow, or his pajamas?

Either way, both expressions are near death (or archaism)

and I am curious as to why.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

For fun I've taken on the task of transcribing an episode of one of my favorite shows, Mad Men. This task, which is both a pleasure and a pain, serves several purposes:

-Gives me something "to do" while still watching TV

-Is practice with screenplay formatting

-Helps to tide me over while I await the season 3 premiere (tomorrowow!)

-Illuminates character elements/dialogue details that I missed before

I've chosen S02E02, "Flight 1," and I'm only 15 pages in. (The first 7 minutes took me an hour. I say this is parenthesis because I feel like that should be a "guilty" confession. Going out of parenthesis...now.)

One thing that I love about Mad Men is its natural dialogue and the way the show's writers seamlessly work early-1960s jargon into the script.

"WHEN THE BEES STING"

For example, in the opening party scene in "Flight 1," Paul Kinsey argues on behalf of his New Jersey digs, telling his work buddies that "Montclair is the knees."

The bee's knees.

If that expression were a snack, it'd be ritz crackers and chocolate milk. Almost too hokey, but not quite.

There's something about 1950s/60s slang that I find so attractive. Maybe it's that so many expressions seem fundamentally euphemistic; each individual word in a given idiom is squeaky clean, even if the cumulative connotation isn't.

Then vs. Now..ish

Dreamboat vs. Hunk/Hottie

Beach Blanket Bingo vs. Sex on the beach

Birds and the Bees vs. Sex Ed & Family Planning

Square (var.: L7) vs. Loser

Of course I'm exaggerating. I can't speak from experience; all I have to back up my flimsy claims is my affinity for Beach Boys songs and a handful of movie/TV-derived stereotypes. I do realize that these expressions were not integral parts of the average 1950s/60s teenager's daily lexicon.

I'm sure come mid-1960s, most people's views of these idiomatic expressions were probably pretty similar to my current opinion regarding slanguage like "the/da Bomb," "Phat," and a bunch of those hand signs from Clueless. (To be fair, I tend to shun anything that draws attention to my hammerhead thumbs.)

But what can I say? Regardless of its authenticity, that past parlance still tickles me pink.

Any expressions you wish were more popular/hadn't died out?