So what *else* is old?

[eclectic_boy]

I had always thought the phrase "Democrat Party" was a recent development, possibly Frank "Winning through Implication" Luntz's attempt to give Republicans a way to blunt the goodwill associated with the word 'democratic'.
But I just watched on C-SPAN an excerpt from Ronald Reagan's speech at the 1976 Republican Convention, after Ford had gotten the nomination and he clearly mentioned the danger of "the erosion of freedom under Democrat rule". Turns out (sayeth wikipedia) the 21st-century popularity of the term among Republicans is just a flare-up of something that dates back to the 19th century, and which was favored by both Hoover and McCarthy.
I wonder what other phrases that I've always thought werre modern actually date back a century?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Other actually old phrases:

Shoot me an e-mail. (According to two sources, e-mail was originally either a small pheasant or a small peasant.)

All your base are belong to us. (From when US Steel made an abortive attempt to corner the market in carbonate alkalinity.)

Stop commenting on old posts. (While this is now assumed to refer exclusively to blogs, ranchers used to scrawl notes about their herds on fence posts. Older fence posts eroded faster than newer fence posts, so notes left on old posts were less likely to survive a harsh winter.)

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

If only I knew who this clever, anonymous, person was!

[(Anonymous)]

That was Michael in Boston. Sorry -- don't have an LJ account. Thanks for allowing anonymous commenting, though!