'60's Lingo from The Twilight Zone, Name your favorite line

Okay it's time to bring this thread to the Cafe!

You've heard those terms on the Zone which are hardly ever or never used today.

Which is the first one that comes to mind for you?

I crack up every time I hear "No dice!"

Leen

The funniest one to me is "off my rocker."

How's that?

"How 'bout it?!" or "Whatta 'bout it?!" when they're looking to get an explanation from someone.

Can I name more than one, Leen? I saw the scene in "What You Need" today where Fred Renard asks Pedott, "What are you doing, giving me the business? Is that what you're doing, giving me the business?" That was also a popular "Leave It To Beaver" line.

Now that I have all the eps on DVD, sometime soon I'm going to go through them all and take notes on fun things like these period expressions...for example, what are some of the ones that come up, in which episodes they occur and how often.

But of course.

I like when Pat Carter says, "Crazy," twice on Nick of Time. Like, uh, it was kind of a beatnik term.

Leen

"This is weird! This is just plain weird!" sounds a little beatniky to me, too, although neither Col. Forbes nor Haley the counterman exactly fit my idea of beatniks. (Haley especially is just a regular kind of guy, as we all know....) I'm not even sure that's an especially '50s-ish or '60s-ish expression. Maybe it's just plain weird. [Edit: See end of this post.]

Another one from "What You Need": "How would you like to take a flying jump at the moon?" No one says that anymore, do they? And if they do (maybe in other regions of the country? Southerners, midwesterners, and others, please advise), I think they use another four-letter word in place of "jump."

And, speaking of "crazy": The word "tilt," which drew a question on one of the earlier boards, is used in a couple of Serling episodes, and appears to mean "off-center," "abnormal," "abnormally," and/or "crazy," depending on the context. I copied this from "The Parallel" a couple of days ago:

General Eaton: Some kind of trauma, something to set him tilt like that....
Colonel Connacher: Can we call it tilt, sir?
General Eaton: Oh, what else? Another dimension, another world parallel to ours, heh. You call that rational?

And in "The Mind And The Matter," Beechcroft's boss says: "Oh, you can't beat those greens for vitamins. I'm a spinach and lettuce man, myself. I'd even have them for breakfast if...well, if people wouldn't look at me a little tilt."

File it under "V" for "vernacular" in...the Twilight Zone!

Edit: Whoops. Repeated viewings of, and closer listening to, "AWTSWO" and "Real Martian" show that the precise lines in those episodes are "This is weird! Just plain weird!" and "This is weird! It's just plain weird!" respectively. The line "It's weird! It's just plain weird!" appears in "I Am The Night--Color Me Black."

More on "tilt," from the script of "The Time Element." Pete Jenson is talking to the psychiatrist:

"When I walked in here I could see you making an inventory. Check the cut of the clothes. Check the language. And up inside your head there--that's where you mark down all the results....You figure this is a kind of minor league horse player. Maybe a little hung over--maybe a little bugged--But either way--maybe about forty degrees tilt."

So, it seems to mean something similar to eccentric or off-center. Why they didn't say "tilted" instead of "tilt" is beyond me. Doesn't "tilted" sound more natural? I guess you had to be there....anyway, the script, which is included in Volume 1 of Tony Albarella's As Timeless As Infinity anthology, also includes such favorite Serling expressions as "off my rocker," "How's that?" "nutsy," "gleep," and "walk on your lower lip."

What about the word "gag"? Is that uncommon enough now to qualify as an expression of the time? I've got to count how many episodes that appears in, too. It does appear in "The Time Element," or at least in the script. Any of these words could have been omitted in the version that appeared on television.

While watching TZ I've noticed that the word "jerk" was used in a different way back then. Nowadays I take it to mean that someone is callous, mean-spirited, obnoxious, etc. Whereas in TZ it seems to mean more like "patsy", someone who can be easily told what to do, "jerked around" I guess.

How about Jack Klugman's "It's to laugh" from In Praise of Pip.

One interesting line I used to hear and never understood was spoken in "Mirror Image" where the ticket guy tells Millicent to sit down "and breathe through your nose". Does anyone know what that used to mean? Doesn't everyone who doesn't have a bad cold breathe through their nose? Never understood that one.

Good question. I'm not really sure about this either, but from its use in "Third From The Sun"--when Carling points the gun and tells Sturka and Riden, "Now, you two stand there very quietly, and breathe through your nose, very, very quietly"--I got the idea that it meant "keep quiet." Is it quieter to breathe through your nose than through your mouth? My guess is that it would depend on the person and how stuffy his/her nose was. Or it could just be another way of saying "shut your mouth and keep it shut."

This line also appears in "The Parallel" (all three are Serling episodes, it's interesting to notice), but I don't remember the context in that one.

The 'breathe through your nose" phrase I've always taken to mean calm down. It's very funny sometimes, as in "Mirror Image". I still hear it once in a great while, but not very often.

"Bread and butter..."

"What's it all about?"

This seems like a reasonable interpretation, and your hearing it used with (apparently) this meaning outside the Twilight Zone makes it even more convincing. Thanks, TZRider.

The word "oddball" seems to have passed its prime period, too. From the introduction to "Mr. Bevis": "In the parlance of the 20th century, this is an oddball." What is he in the parlance of the 21st century? Oh yeah, how could I forget--a butthead....

Also from "Bevis": "To use the vernacular, Bevis, frankly, I don't dig you." It's unclear to me whether Serling meant Hempstead to be saying the equivalent of "I don't understand you, Bevis" or "I don't like you, Bevis." "Dig" could mean either "understand" or "like" back in the day, although I don't know whether that was always the case, or whether perhaps one meaning of "dig" gradually gave way to another. From the way Henry Jones delivers the line, my first impression would be that he means Hempstead to be saying the equivalent of "I don't like you." Whether this was Rod's intention or not, who knows?

Ah yes oddball was used in TMADOMS by Charlie. "Real oddball." Can't you jus hear him say it?

Leen

You're right about that double meaning, which I hadn't considered before. I have to believe it means "understand" here, because I can't see any reason for JHH to dislike his mortal charge. That could be tantamount to a parent not liking his/her child. There's also its use by the waiter in "A Most Unusual Camera" ("You deeg?"), which clearly means "You understand?" (or should I say, "Comprenez vous?").

I replied to this in the "Mr. Bevis" thread.

I heard a fairly young (30ish?) woman say "How's that?" in a doctor's office today. Was that a fluke, or is it possible that "How's that?" is not a particularly old-fashioned phrase? Go ahead, tell me; I can take it...

I can think of at least three episodes that use the word "gleep," an all-purpose uncomplimentary expression to call a fellow man: "Nervous Man in a $4 Room," "A Kind of a Stopwatch," and "The Bard." I can't recall hearing this beyond the '60s.

I was just thinking about "gleep" a day or two ago,
from "The Bard" in particular.
I've never heard this word in actual usage.
Reminds me of "dweeb."

But "how's that?" seems very natural to me.

Those are the only three that I can think of, but "gleep" is one of the words I'm looking for, so if there are more, I'll get them down (barring human error, of course).

Are you using "man" in the gender-neutral sense, Dan, or was "gleep" in fact only used to describe men? I ask this only because i) you were around when this word was used, and I wasn't; and ii) "gleep" was in fact used in these 3 TZ episodes only to describe men. (And if I recall correctly, only by men, for that matter.)

I meant "man" in the masculine sense, but I may have misled you into thinking I know the word from personal use. Offhand I can't think of anywhere besides TZ where I've heard it, and by "hearing this beyond the '60s" I meant on TV shows from later eras.

Maybe the feminine equivalent is "gleepette."

Hi,
Does anyone know why they say bread and butter ?

Lady9

That was an old superstition (before my time) about when two people walking together got divided by a lamppost or something. Apparently that was supposed to bring bad luck unless you said "bread and butter" to nullify it. How that superstition started, and why people said those particular words, are interesting questions, but I don't know the answer to either of them. Maybe the answers are online somewhere?

"Hey Mister" or "Look Mister" from any number of episodes.

In what context was "bread and butter" used ? I always thought it meant how you made a living, but I guess it depends on how it was used.

That's true grace, it could indicate that. The TZ reference I recall is from 'Nick of Time' and in that instance, Mr. Bevis' explanation would be why 'bread and butter' was used. Shatner's character was very superstitious in that episode.

That's true grace, it could indicate that. The TZ reference I recall is from 'Nick of Time' and in that instance, Mr. Bevis' explanation would be why 'bread and butter' was used. Shatner's character was very superstitious in that episode.

See also http://twilightzonewor.9.forumer.com/index...findpost&p=1794 and the posts after it for a fuller discussion. Let me know if the link doesn't work.

Looking through some episode transcripts today, I found a fourth "gleep" episode, "The Whole Truth." Another Serling episode, not surprisingly. I wonder if anyone ever used this word outside of a Rod Serling television episode. Maybe one of the reasons Rod kept using it was to see if he could start a new slang craze. It doesn't seem to have worked, anyway.

In all four TZ episodes that I know of, as well as the "Time Element" script, "gleep" referred only to men. It was used for one character in each episode, unless my memory is off, and all five were men. In theory, the chance that all five "gleeps" would be men is 1 in 32 (3.125%), which is statistically significant at a low level. But since there are more male characters than female in Serling's scripts, it'd actually be less unlikely for all five to be men, perhaps quite a bit less unlikely. In all cases the user of the insult is also a man. I can't think of any insulting terms that can properly be used only by one sex, however (in terms of linguistic propriety, anyway, not the Emily Post kind of propriety).

How about "On a toot" for a night with a bottle apparently. Used in AWTSWO.

Leen

On Flight 33 there are three:

-on the pipe
-on the horn and
-no soap

Weirdness

Leen

The word "masher" appears in at least two eps. Passage for a Trumpet" and in "Mr. Dingle"

masher

n 1: a man who is aggressive in making amorous advances to women [syn: wolf, woman chaser, skirt chaser]

Leen

Mr. Bevis asked: ""How would you like to take a flying jump at the moon?"  No one says that anymore, do they?" 

"Moon" expressions were the vogue in the 50's and 60's.

Anyone old enough to remember this one--from Ralph to Alice in "The Honeymooners"?

"You're going to the moon, Alice!"
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/honeymooner-pic-884.jpg

Ahh, thanks for bringing that up. I just saw today in "To Serve Man" where Mr. Chambers yells it to the speaker phone on the spaceship. I believe it is used several times in the Zone.


Mooning has a whole other meaning now.
Leen

"Why don't you take a flying leap at the moon?" is also heard in The Chaser, as Leila tells Roger to do just that.

From The Thirty-Fathom Grave--

"Isn't that a kick in the head?"

"That just frosts me!"

Approaching a third of the phrases that I've just read here, are still in common use in my region of England [Liverpool] today!

Very interesting, Martin! Please tell us some!

Or could it be that your part of Liverpool is frozen permanently in...the Twilight Zone?

They still have kings and queens in England, so that should tell us something...

Ok, maybe I am a dork, but I still use a lot of those phrases. But certainly not gleep