Being a numbskull who was hoodwinked in old-time Phoenix


I've always enjoyed how people use the English language, especially slang terms that come and go. I myself am a child of the seventies, but know enough not to use "far out" and "out of sight" when I'm talking to young people. I still use "cool", and I often hear the word "awesome". But some words just give me a time-traveling feeling, so let's go to old-time Phoenix and be numbskulls who were hoodwinked.

OK, let's start with numbskull - that means someone whose brain isn't functioning very well, as if it were numb. Being hoodwinked is being cheated, or fooled, which you can see can happen if you're a numbskull.

But wait, you may be saying, "What's with all of this rigamarole?", meaning my confusing talk, and you might even think that I'm an old codger, which is an old-fashioned word for an old person who is, well, something of a numbskull. They're also probably decrepit, and you may want to help them up the stairs.

OK, you may consider all of this to be tomfoolery, and I understand. It's just goofy, but that's the fun part of using a language. I only speak one language, English, and I'd imagine it's difficult enough to learn without having to try to figure out slang, and especially slang that isn't really used anymore.

Egads!

There are so many other old-time slang terms, and you may have seen them in old books, or old movies. I like to think that I'm no fuddy-duddy, and I won't flim-flam you, and you just might think I'm discombobulated. It's interesting to me that as I write this, some of the words are considered misspellings, but discombobulated was in the dictionary. Now I'm all discombobulated about what slang terms to use.

All right, enough of these shenanigans, it's time for me to skedaddle! Thank you for using slang terms in old-time Phoenix!

Did you just call me a nincompoop?

Image at the top of this post: Looking east on Washington from Central in the 1940s, Phoenix, Arizona. I'm sure that everyone in that photo would have understood these terms, and a lot more!
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