by Secret Hippie
Accidental Revisionism
Rarely do I remember how different things were. Coca-Cola, when I was nine years old, was so fundamentally different that I enjoy my occasional flashbacks to 'the best soda I ever had.' The event took place after I swam until I was exhausted, begged for vending machine money, and drank a small bottle of soda.
That's a tangible thing. Plus, there's evidence of the drink formulas from various eras. That's why so many people in our society remember the taste once being better despite Coca-Cola ads claiming otherwise. Less tangible and less easy to recall, I think, are the past contexts of our lives like those revealed in the terms we used. Some of them were regional sayings. For instance, I grew up oogling girls.
That was what the old men said. And I definitely did it. I liked to watch girls. Talking to them was more difficult. Sometimes I would freeze up completely. But I could half-close my eyes and just watch. Or watch with my mouth hanging open.
The term was pronounced oogling as in googling or "oooo, look at that."
Later, I learned that the dictionary said this was ogling. It was officially spelled differently and pronounced differently than I thought. (Whoever wrote the dictionary probably said, "oh, look at that.") Nowadays, the oogling form is gone entirely. It's been replaced by the official dictionary decision, at least in my region of the country. But oogling was a better word. You could just hear and almost see the wide-open eyes implied by it, the sheer dumbfoundedness in someone’s face.
Another term that was stolen from our colloquial history, was "yadada yadada." Somehow, perhaps from my friends using Yiddish slang, I started saying “yadada yadada” in place of “and so on, and so on.” I think my changeover to "yadada yadada" happened when I was around thirteen.
There was a childish joy in saying a string of nonsense syllables and having everyone know what you meant. No one could define “yadada yadada” but everyone smiled and nodded at it.
In the late 1980s, though, after I had been spewing out my multisyllabic nonsense for over a decade, a new TV show came out that re-set the standard phrase. That show was Seinfeld. Suddenly, people started to look at me funny when I talked to them exactly as I always had before.
I actually had a few friends try to correct me. At this point, I may not have owned a television. But I was forced to learn about the show Seinfeld. Because whenever I said yadada yadada, which was often, I would get an involuntary education on how funny this program was.
Everyone loved it. I hadn’t seen it and already I hated it.
At this point, I wonder if anyone remembers that "yadada yadada” once existed. As far as I can tell, there's a lot of revisionism about the past that isn't deliberate. It just happens. Everybody backfills their memories with wrong stuff from television shows. ads, or current cultural norms. Little snippets get left out of our national or regional stories. Elements of personal contexts get lost.
Gone forever or radically changed are oogling, ping, flannel cake, twilight, wampum, sneakies, catfish, mixed marriage, sick, thongs, and so many others, yadada, yadada. You know what I mean.
That's a tangible thing. Plus, there's evidence of the drink formulas from various eras. That's why so many people in our society remember the taste once being better despite Coca-Cola ads claiming otherwise. Less tangible and less easy to recall, I think, are the past contexts of our lives like those revealed in the terms we used. Some of them were regional sayings. For instance, I grew up oogling girls.
That was what the old men said. And I definitely did it. I liked to watch girls. Talking to them was more difficult. Sometimes I would freeze up completely. But I could half-close my eyes and just watch. Or watch with my mouth hanging open.
The term was pronounced oogling as in googling or "oooo, look at that."
Later, I learned that the dictionary said this was ogling. It was officially spelled differently and pronounced differently than I thought. (Whoever wrote the dictionary probably said, "oh, look at that.") Nowadays, the oogling form is gone entirely. It's been replaced by the official dictionary decision, at least in my region of the country. But oogling was a better word. You could just hear and almost see the wide-open eyes implied by it, the sheer dumbfoundedness in someone’s face.
Another term that was stolen from our colloquial history, was "yadada yadada." Somehow, perhaps from my friends using Yiddish slang, I started saying “yadada yadada” in place of “and so on, and so on.” I think my changeover to "yadada yadada" happened when I was around thirteen.
There was a childish joy in saying a string of nonsense syllables and having everyone know what you meant. No one could define “yadada yadada” but everyone smiled and nodded at it.
In the late 1980s, though, after I had been spewing out my multisyllabic nonsense for over a decade, a new TV show came out that re-set the standard phrase. That show was Seinfeld. Suddenly, people started to look at me funny when I talked to them exactly as I always had before.
I actually had a few friends try to correct me. At this point, I may not have owned a television. But I was forced to learn about the show Seinfeld. Because whenever I said yadada yadada, which was often, I would get an involuntary education on how funny this program was.
Everyone loved it. I hadn’t seen it and already I hated it.
At this point, I wonder if anyone remembers that "yadada yadada” once existed. As far as I can tell, there's a lot of revisionism about the past that isn't deliberate. It just happens. Everybody backfills their memories with wrong stuff from television shows. ads, or current cultural norms. Little snippets get left out of our national or regional stories. Elements of personal contexts get lost.
Gone forever or radically changed are oogling, ping, flannel cake, twilight, wampum, sneakies, catfish, mixed marriage, sick, thongs, and so many others, yadada, yadada. You know what I mean.
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