Lost Words

dolly bird, donkey jacket, eiderdown, fancy goods, flicks , and galoshes

All of these are familiar to me (from London), except 'fancy goods', which appears (from very quick Google search) to be a retail-specific term.

'Dolly bird' (or 'dollybird') (young/attractive/glamorous/'tarted up' woman) and 'flicks' (cinema - 'pictures' when I was younger) are used by older people - my mother (late 60s) always talks about 'the flicks' rather than the cinema.

I don't use 'eiderdown' (duvet, quilt) but it doesn't strike me as odd/archaic when I hear other people use it.

'Donkey jacket' (heavy jacket used by, for example, workmen) is still current - I can't think of an alternative.

'Galoshes' is familiar although I can't remember the last time I saw a pair or actually heard anyone use it - it sounds like something from Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five', or Winnie-the-Pooh - or again, something my mother would use.

I always thought 'galoshes' was more N American -- the equivalent British expression being wellingtons or wellies. I guess 'dolly bird' would have been a word used in Britain in the Swinging Sixties. Didn't they call girls 'birds' in those days?

I say eiderdown but perhaps I am a dying breed. It must have been used in Canada, since I say it, but I think people generally say "duvet" (doovay) now.

I've run into "fancy goods" but I'm pretty sure it was only in novels written by UK authors--probably old murder mysteries.

There's a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip about galoshes.

I always thought 'galoshes' was more N American -- the equivalent British expression being wellingtons or wellies.

I thought galoshes were something you wore over normal shoes in wet weather - but I've never worn them and don't know if I've ever seen them on sale. Wellies are rubber boots that you wear instead of shoes (when it's raining, for gardening etc.).

Well, VinnyD, it seems that the word "galoshes" isn't dead; it just changed its meaning.

I was surprised to see bjd say that Wellingtons are their equivalent. No way!

But then I did an image search on Google, and waded through hundreds of images without finding any that showed the type of galoshes I wore as a child. They were of black rubber and came about halfway to the knee. The equivalent of a shoe's tongue was, instead, a sort of accordion-fold or pleat, so that once closed the entire thing would be waterproof. There were about six metal clips that were inserted into fasteners, then snapped back to lock them in place.

You're right, stormboy; galoshes were worn over one's shoes.

I just looked on Google images too, only to discover that what are called galoshes now are indeed like wellingtons. In my earlier post, I meant the kind that go over shoes.

When I was a kid in Canada, in winter girls wore galoshes (always black or dark brown rubber ones) over their shoes. There was only one fastening and it was fashionable to leave it unfastened. Boys had to wear rubber boots and sit in class in their thick socks. But those galoshes disappeared by the early 1960s and were replaced by leather boots in winter.

A couple of weeks ago in Rome, we saw young women wearing rubber boots for the style. It must have been for the style since it was warm and sunny. Despite Google images, I called them "rubber boots" and not galoshes.

But those galoshes disappeared by the early 1960s....

I suppose that the kind I'm thinking of must have disappeared even earlier.

About leather boots versus galoshes: In Chicago, where I grew up, galoshes were only worn in extremely bad weather: rain or sleet, for example. On a winter day when you were only walking along sidewalks that had been cleared of snow, you wore "high tops," leather boots with very long shoestrings. If your parents could be persuaded to do so, they would buy you a pair that had a little pocket on the side of one of them, complete with a pocketknife. Kids played with knives in my day.

Well, "high tops" of the kind I wore don't show up in an image search. They were not loose-fitting, but tied tight around the leg. In the photo at the following link, you'll see four boys on a Chicago sidewalk in 1945. The oldest boys are wearing knickers and long stockings. If they were wearing "high tops" the boots would have come up as far as the stockings, but would have fit as snugly as a glove.

Knickers, in the American sensesavedsettings=3125943167#photo3125943167]

Edited by NorthAmerican

'flick' a slangy term for 'movie' seems common enough. One often sees it in the expression 'chick flick' a film such as Sex in the City, made for and marketed to female fans.