Etymology of old-fashioned phrases: 'old hat'

[chicken]

The other day at work, I referred to some programming practice as being "old hat" and my co-worker didn't know what this meant.

I have frequently been caught using old-fashioned phrases that make me sound like someone's grandma. This is because my parents were born during/before the Depression, and had me when they were in their late 30's/early 40's. So they use(d) phrases and vocabulary that were popular during the Depression and during WWII (and well before, because they speak they way THEIR parents spoke, turn of the century).

However, I just don't feel that "old hat" is really so "old"-fashioned. It seems very ordinary to me. However, I have no frame of reference, because I grew up hearing things that sound normal to me, and weird to other people my age.

Do other people have a familiarity with this phrase?

Is it truly old-fashioned?

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think "old hat" is very common usage! But you have to consider that I myself am pretty old hat, so I may not be the best person to ask :)

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I am sure you aren't that old hat. ;-) Come on!

I've been thinking that it sounds old-fashioned simply because these days people don't tend to wear hats much. I mean, other than at the Kentucky Derby or something.

[antennapedia.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Yes, I know what "old hat" means, and probably say it fairly often. I would expect the people around me to know it, too.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Well, this guy's ten years younger than me, so who knows. Maybe it's regional, too. I've only lived here in Florida for a year, and sometimes I do say things that are a bit Western or a bit New England. This certainly can't be one of those, however.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

I still hear it used by people around my age and younger. I know what it means, and I use it myself. I don't think it's old-fashioned. Old-fashioned would be to describe something or someone to one of your co-workers as the "bees knees."

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Bee's knees, cat's whiskers ... heh heh.

How about this one -- I once heard someone exclaim (instead of "oh my god") --

Oh my stars and gardens!

Hilarious.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Bunny says, how about "cat's pajamas". :-)

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

Meow. My father actually says something that he got from his parents. He's 70. When he's exclaiming over something amazing he says, "If that don't beat a hen a peckin'!" I don't even know what the hell it means, but I'm sure it's not commonly used by anyone under 95, besides my daddy.

I did pick up a couple more from him. When I'm pissed about something I say, "Well, I'll be dipped in shit." When I'm talking about someone being rich I say, "Is he rich? Why he's as rich as a foot up a bull's ass." i love saying those here in Houston because no one else uses them, and it freaks people out. My daddy taught me so many wonderful things. :nods:

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

"If that don't beat a hen a peckin'!"

Well! !!

As you can well imagine, this is my new favorite phrase! BAWK!!

:-) Your daddy is smart.

[(Anonymous)]

Hee! Bawk! Bawk!!

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll be dipped in shit! LJ made my last comment anonymous.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Oh, very funny. ;-)

You know, LJ does that a lot. It mysteriously logs me out of my account at least once a day. Grrrrrr. Every other website in the known universe is content to let me keep my damn browser cookies, but no! LiveJournal feels it has to delete them all the effing time!!

[ponders-life.livejournal.com]

Like you, I grew up with relatives saying "old hat," so it seems perfectly normal to me -- not old-fashioned at all. But I'm 46. I don't know what a twenty-something would think of it.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

See, it just does seem totally normal.

Here's another fun one. My father says it a lot, in his Gary Cooper voice, or sometimes his Bugs Bunny voice. He'll be telling a story, or summarizing a scene from a film, and end with, ...and then he gave the guy what-for!

[kernelm.livejournal.com]

Huh.

"Old hat" seems perfectly ordinary to me. I mean... I've never even considered it as old fashioned or anything.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I think unfortunately my friends list is really too similar to me. ;-)

[kernelm.livejournal.com]

Well, in reference to the comment above mine, I actually am 20-something. :) Heck, I didn't even live in the US until a month before the 90s began. And I didn't know any English before then, so I learned it growing up here.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

You're just like my father -- he arrived in the US from China in 1938 when he was nine years old. Although some of his teachers in the elementary school in Canton also taught him some English, he likes to joke that he learned English mostly from movies (that's why sometimes it seems like he sounds a lot like Gary Cooper).

[superplin.livejournal.com]

Hey, you and I had the same parents!

So I guess the fact that "old hat" sounds perfectly current to me doesn't help you much...

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Hey, you and I had the same parents!

Well that makes me feel less weird. :-) But you're right, it doesn't help too much.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Nope. I've heard it and have used it myself.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

And you are younger than he is. I'm beginning to think it's just a fluke, because he knows tons of other esoteric and not-so-esoteric phrases.

[spinthemoon.livejournal.com]

"Old hat" is not old hat to me, but then I'm pretty old hat myself, so I'm probably not the one to ask.

Everyone laughs at me when I say "He was all over it like a duck on a june bug." I thought that was a pretty common expression, but apparently not.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

That's a good one -- although I've never heard it before. I think these linguistic patterns are just fascinating!

[vrya.livejournal.com]

My parents are from the same era as yours, so I'm probably not the best person to answer, but "old hat" sounds perfectly normal to me. Come on, people still wear hats, and like new things better than old things, how dated could the expression be? Not to mention pretty obvious in meaning from context... do we need to change it to "last year's i-pod" in order for the whipersnappers to get the idea?

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

last year's iPod! I imagine that might catch on ... :-)

[anelith.livejournal.com]

Your co-worker didn't recognize "old hat?" Now that does make me feel old...

I have on several occasions used phrases that others don't recognize but it comes from a combination of two very dissimilar sources. 1) My parents come from the mountains of Appalachia, where some country language still remained as they were growing up, and 2) As I grew up overseas I tended to read a *lot* of British kids' books. Both sources supplied rather odd turns of phrase.

Of course, now that I've put myself on the spot, I can't think of a single one as an example.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I know, it's tough to come up with examples on the spot.

Google Search

[murraytodd.livejournal.com]

In a 10-minute quest of the Oracle of Google I was not able to find anything except this snippet from a book "Over 1500 Phrases Explored and Explained" by Betty and Elizabeth McLaren Kirpatrick:

old hat is an idiom cliche meaning old-fashioned, unoriginal and uninteresting, as I'm not going to hear4 his lecture on psychology. His ideas are Old Hat. In origin it probably refers to the fact that hats go out of fashion before they actually wear out. The expression dates from the late nineteenth century and is a widespread chiche today in all but the most formal contexts.

I suspect the phrase is less generational than regional, ie. your co-worker might have grown up in an culture where fewer idiomatic phrases were used in general.

Re: Google Search

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I think you are correct. His father is from West Virginia so they use actually lots of idiomatic phrases that non-West Virginians probably don't use, and vice versa.

West Virginia

[murraytodd.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I remember in college my friend Dana from Virginia using expressions like "Cool Beans!" that I'd never heard before. That one I co-opted on occasion, and it's interesting seeing peoples' reactions. Sometimes it one of those "Mygawd I haven't heard that one in ages!" looks.

Re: West Virginia

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Yes, someone in my first year dorm at college said "cool beans" all the time, and was from West Virginia. I can't remember her name anymore, something like Kristen or Kirsten. Isn't it weird how these little details stick with you for years?