obsolescene [was church key]

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've never lived with an actual "icebox," but that's what I grew up calling a refrigerator, and I still do it at unguarded moments.

JL

sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: obsolescene [was church key]
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>In my day, ice was delivered by the ice man, a system well-attested in
>various blues songs through the ''50's. There was a sign that was
>placed in a front window to let the ice man know how many pounds of ice
>were wanted. I learned "figidaire" first. My grandmother in Texas had a
>General Electric frigidaire. When we moved to St. Louis, we at first
>couldn't afford a frigidaire. So, we got an icebox.
>
>-Wilson Gray
> ~~~~~~~~~~
We, too, had an icebox, which was retired to the back porch and used as a
cupboard when we got a monitor-top GE refrigerator. I still hear myself
saying "icebox" instead of "fridge," at times. "Frigidaire" wasn't the the
GE brand...might have been Westinghouse's (or poss. GM's?).
The iceman continued to visit our street through most of the '30s. The
sign the householder put in the front window had the amounts wanted printed
in different orientations; it was turned so that the one wanted was at the
top.
A. Murie

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