Toughen up: Australians 50 years ago didn't need trigger warnings, safe spaces - they just got on with it
We use perfectly straight-forward, everyday expressions we've used all our lives that just puzzle them.
So here is my little list of what you've missed, so you won't feel quite so confused next time a Baby Boomer talks to you. Toughen up
This is one Baby Boomers are fond of throwing at Gen Z.
Usually pointing out that we never had 'safe spaces' or 'trigger warnings'.
We just got on with it!
Sometimes this expression is used in the extended form of 'toughen up buttercup'.
(That's a play on the title of an old pop song from our era called 'Build Me Up Buttercup' - back when music was still music.) You sound like a broken record
While you download all your music from some streaming service or other we had actual records. When we were young they were made of vinyl, and we watched them spinning on the turntable.
The problem was when a small scratch was made in a groove the needle would jump on the scratch, playing the same little bit over and over again.
That's why, when anyone nags, and repeats themselves, we say they sound like a broken record. Carbon Copy
At the top of your email form, just under 'To' it says 'Cc'.
That's because back in the day when we used paper all the time we had something called 'carbon paper.'
This was a thin, black sheet you could put between your top piece of paper and second one underneath - then anything you wrote (or typed) on the top one came out on the second one.
Clever, eh? And the second piece of paper was the 'carbon copy' of the first. Now you know what the 'Cc' stands for. A Kodak moment
This was an advertising slogan for the Kodak company who made both cameras and something called 'film'- a strip of celluloid on which you could take pictures.
This could be 35mm wide (or wider, if you used a cheap Box Brownie camera).
When you had used up a roll of film you took it to the chemist to be processed, turned into negatives and printed up on paper as positive images.
We couldn't just use a smart phone, then look to see how the picture turned out.
No, no, no.
We learned the patience waiting for the snaps to come back from the chemist. Dial phones
I have stood behind a couple of Gen Zers at a technology museum as they puzzled over an old black, Bakelite dial phone.
'But where are the buttons?' they asked each other, and 'what do you press?'
Well, these were real phones - where you put your finger in one of the holes in the circular dial and turned it round as far as it would go, then released it again.
That's how you dialled numbers when phones were all connected by wires. Pay phones
For those who enjoy those black and white films starring the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, there might be one scene you would never see play out in these modern times.
Younger readers might be puzzled to watch the hero dashing around the street looking for a 'pay phone'.
Why doesn't he just pull his phone out of his pocket?
Because they didn't exist - so he needed a pay phone.
In a telephone booth would be a dial phone with a coin box attached.
To make a call you needed to (a) to find a phone box, and (b) have the right coins in your pocket to make a call.
I think kids these days have got it easy, compared to the way we had it (and look for the old Humphrey Bogart movie 'The Maltese Falcon' - your life will be enriched!) Actress
This is one of those words that has been banned by the feminist movement.
But back in our day the blokes who acted were called 'actors' and the sheilas were called 'actresses'.
But we have learned not to use that latter word these days - or run the risk of being called dinosaurs who don't respect women. Rolodex
This is what we had instead of something listed as 'contacts' on a phone or laptop.
A Rolodex was a rotating card file.
The name is a combination of 'rolling' and 'index'.
It was invented in 1956 and dominated our working lives in the 1960s and 70s.
It was the salesman with the best (most comprehensive) Rolodex who made the most sales!
Nowadays your 'contacts' file can be read by any bit Trojan software that invades your devices - that couldn't happen with a Rolodex sitting on my desk! The Whole Nine Yards
This means 'the lot'.
If your Baby Boomer friend is really committed he will tell you he is going all the way on this - the whole nine yards.
Well, 'yard' might puzzle a Gen Z Aussie a bit.
But why 'nine yards'?
Why that number?
No one is certain, we just say it, because the expression has been around for a long time.
As a wordsmith I can tell you that it comes from the early 1900s and appears to spring from a (very unfunny) old joke about a judge who gave a woman nine yards of cloth to make him three shirts, but (to his horror) she made one, huge shirt using the whole nine yards! Put a sock in it
When a Baby Boomer says this to you, they are telling you to stop talking.
They are picturing you with a sock stuffed in your mouth so that they don't have to listen you any longer.
The expression actually comes from the earliest days of recorded music, when black discs were played on hand-cranked gramophones, with the sound coming out of a big bell-shaped horn on top.
It was all acoustic, so if you wanted to mute the sound you had to stuff a small item of clothing (such as a sock) into the horn. Saved by the bell
This means 'just in time' - help arrived at the very last moment.
The 'bell' referred to here is the referee's bell in a boxing match.
With timed rounds of three minutes, if a boxer was staggering and about to fall when the bell sounded he had been 'saved by the bell'.
Mind you, there is also a myth attached to this expression.
Namely that it goes back to the 1800s, when it was found that some people had been buried alive - in a deep coma that looked like death.
Supposedly they dug up some old graves and found scratches on the inside of the coffin lids. So, according to this story, coffins were fitted with a string running up to a bell above ground - so that a mistakenly buried person, upon regaining consciousness could pull the string and be 'saved by the bell'.
Complete nonsense. Never happened. But a chilling story, none the less.
That's my little list. Has it helped?
Explained a puzzle or two?
In future, please pay attention to the Baby Boomers around you.
Listen to them.
Try to understand their rich and colourful expressions.
If there is something you don't understand, just ask. They won't mind.
Kel Richards is a veteran Australian broadcaster and author whose distinguished media career includes hosting the ABC current affairs show AM and his own talkback commercial radio shows. He is also a frequent on-air contributor for Sky News Australia
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Next month: Millennials Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.
