Despite sounding to modern ears like that generations "Michael" or "Jennifer", neither Percy nor Archibald were in the top 200 of baby names in the 1920s per the Social Security Administration
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1920s.html
EDIT - correction - 'Archie' was #164 in the 1920s, and #141 in the 1910s
Is face tag just playing tag via line of sight? That combo of terms is now, of course, ungooglable to determine what it may have referenced in the past.
Obligatory inflation calculator comment that 30 bucks in 1911 is at least $930 today, and 36 dollars is over $1100.
I could see an office pool for the Superb Owl or NCAA March madness having a pot of a thousand dollars, but a casual Venmo of 900 dollars to a friend seems like it would need to be a very good friend indeed.
(I'll also say in my wayward yute days, at the more recent turn of the century, being up or down a thousand bucks in one night at Mohegan Sun had precedent, but also I was only living in the area for a few months, so I felt I would be moving before things could potentially get out of hand)
Which itself isn't a new as people think. Or at least, when Ru Paul has been advertising that Lingo game during football, and everyone said 'hey they made of tv version of Wordle!', they in fact just rebooted a TV show from the 1980s. (fun fact - hosted by Ronald Reagan's son)
otoh, it was 1920, the 18th amendment & Volstead act had just passed, so *everyone* was literally having a Dry January, as well as every other month that year. (but only after January 17th, it seems)
Here's a summary of Ford's production around that era (which between the war and it starting to get real competition, ebbed until the end of decade). (The overall economy was in a bit of a flux too, with the war creating some shortages and the first significant bout of inflation signifying the end of the Long Depression / Long Deflation period of the (first) Gilded age). (and income tax was taking a bite for the first time)
But still, the highest end Ford was well under a thousand (those years) dollars. So, this to me is like throwing around Lambo or Bentley money for this era.
"Office Boy" also seems like a more specific board game of the type exemplified by the game "Life" (not to be confused with "The Game of LIfe" by the late great John Conway (RIP). (Which in fact I did when I bought my first computer for college in the early 90s)
The board game life apparently goes back to the 1860s and called originally "The Checkered Game of Life".
I played a newer version of Life last Christmas with the nieces, and of course they made some changes for the times, but also changed the games dynamics somewhat substantially. (the one I remember most is there's no more insurance. So no more 'Car Accident!? (smug) But I'm insured! (/smug)'
although, am I Mandela'ing that commercial? I can't find it on the web and it's not in this collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-o8Spa4isQ
They were Polish/Lithuanian Catholics (though it was my mom's grandparents who were born in 'the old country' circa late1880s, my grandmother and all her siblings were born in the US circa 1910s). My mom's dad's side was German, but I don't think my mom's parents were well connected with his family (my maternal grandfather died when my mom was a teenager, and I never met any relatives on that side of the family in my life)
if I recall correctly, yes, everything stayed up until Jan 6 Three Kings.
I do think to clarify there were other decorations e.g. outdoor lights* earlier in December, but the tree itself was apparently the 24th.
*but not blinking ones because 'we're not running a bar and grill here'.
When my mom was a kid, the tradition was for Santa to bring the tree, so they didn't put anything up until Christmas Eve. Which must of been a New York City thing, because there's a Christmas I Love Lucy episode where the exact same thing happens.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=834054983697914
A story from the following year on how McFarland’s fiancé and her family convinced him to retire from boxing.
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=RDP19140618.2.85&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------
According to page 3 of this pdf (glory to the St Louis Fed for its historical data and pubs), the average corporate bond was down to 4.25% by the end of 1922 (after paying out at 8% in 1920). Railroad bonds had interest rates about a percent higher, but the medium term trend was for interest rates to decline until 1929, when, well, everything went kablooey.
as a proxy for railroad stocks at the time the Dow Jones Transportation Index (a different thing from the more commonly known Dow Jones Industrial Average) went up between 7 to 16% for the next few years, until a small drop in 1929, and then 33% decline in 1930, and a 65%(!) decline in 1931
I don't disagree, but also, this has been going on since at least the early 90s when credit cards went mainstream, and aggressively advertising in the student newspapers and direct mail was likely the thing that launched their trajectory towards ubiquity.
Management’s position is that moving around trains and the people that drive them is a well orchestrated ballet wherein a few people or a single person suddenly calling out sick causes a cascade of delays that disrupts the entire system. I.e. as if one needed to get a substitute teacher halfway across the country to your school or else the entire school would have to close.
Of course the counterpoint is “ok hire more fishin people so you have some redundancy in your personnel system!” And management’s counterpoint to that is ‘we don’t want to carry that payroll load in non-salary benefit expenses’ but also the usual form of ‘well no one wants to work anymore’.
Because as an industry they have the common problem where no one hired anyone for a decade or more because of a combo of (good) sector labor efficiency realignment and (bad) uncompetitive starting pay. So, the labor force is top heavy with people near or over retirement age, and retire is exactly what all those folks have been doing economy wide for two years.
I do always associate these dancethon stunts with 1950s teenagers, so it’s interesting to see this sort of cultural artifact occurring a generation earlier.
I remember just eating on card tables as a kid during big family gatherings. But I only had two cousins close to my sister’s and I’s age. Everyone else was a half to almost a full generation off in either direction. (And between my parents generation on both sides moving every which way, plus the low Gen X kid count, ‘big family gatherings’ really didn’t happen anymore by the time I was a teenager and would have been eligible for the ‘adults table’).
(Frankly, my grandparents generation also didn’t do the best job at ensuring ‘family tradings’ would continue. There was a card game my father’s mother’s side in Nova Scotia would all play, called ‘auction’, aka as ‘45’. They would have huge card parties, but wouldn’t let any of the kids play even if the kid’s knew how. So naturally, once this generation literally died off, the parties, and even knowledge of the game, did so as well.
Percy Hammond was a theater critic for the New York Tribune, also Brigg's paper, by the time this was published. He was, apparently, kind of a big deal.
So I wonder if other names, as well as the name of the play, are also puns/references to real people and works.
Yeah, that's definitely a different take than this one on the profession and the social status it is perceived as having. And only a year apart, so it's not a change between artistic eras.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Percy Archibald”
Despite sounding to modern ears like that generations "Michael" or "Jennifer", neither Percy nor Archibald were in the top 200 of baby names in the 1920s per the Social Security Administration
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1920s.html
EDIT - correction - 'Archie' was #164 in the 1920s, and #141 in the 1910s
On “Burglars!”
Is face tag just playing tag via line of sight? That combo of terms is now, of course, ungooglable to determine what it may have referenced in the past.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 1/23/2023”
and Carter!
https://twitter.com/FarnoushAmiri/status/1618057944632856576
On “The Great American Touch”
Obligatory inflation calculator comment that 30 bucks in 1911 is at least $930 today, and 36 dollars is over $1100.
I could see an office pool for the Superb Owl or NCAA March madness having a pot of a thousand dollars, but a casual Venmo of 900 dollars to a friend seems like it would need to be a very good friend indeed.
(I'll also say in my wayward yute days, at the more recent turn of the century, being up or down a thousand bucks in one night at Mohegan Sun had precedent, but also I was only living in the area for a few months, so I felt I would be moving before things could potentially get out of hand)
On “The Crossword Queen”
Which itself isn't a new as people think. Or at least, when Ru Paul has been advertising that Lingo game during football, and everyone said 'hey they made of tv version of Wordle!', they in fact just rebooted a TV show from the 1980s. (fun fact - hosted by Ronald Reagan's son)
On “Oh Man! Down Sick”
Vince Gilligan with an early uncredited script contribution.
On “POETS Day! Vladimir Nabokov”
i have used
the word plums
that was in
your post
and which
you were probably
saving for
your mangum opus
forgive me
they were so rounded
and so bilabial
On “A Grand & Glorious Smoke”
ah, the 100 year old version of 'Dry January".
otoh, it was 1920, the 18th amendment & Volstead act had just passed, so *everyone* was literally having a Dry January, as well as every other month that year. (but only after January 17th, it seems)
On “When A Feller Needs Fewer Missiles”
wow, this one goes hard. (frankly, uncharacteristically)
On “Yoo-Hoo! Hap-pay New Year!”
throwback to another buckwheat cakes comic with appearances in the comments from Spiderman and his family
https://ordinary-times.com/2022/03/04/buckwheat-cakes/
On “Five Thousand In The Pocket”
Here's a summary of Ford's production around that era (which between the war and it starting to get real competition, ebbed until the end of decade). (The overall economy was in a bit of a flux too, with the war creating some shortages and the first significant bout of inflation signifying the end of the Long Depression / Long Deflation period of the (first) Gilded age). (and income tax was taking a bite for the first time)
But still, the highest end Ford was well under a thousand (those years) dollars. So, this to me is like throwing around Lambo or Bentley money for this era.
On “Parents Partying After Dark”
"Office Boy" also seems like a more specific board game of the type exemplified by the game "Life" (not to be confused with "The Game of LIfe" by the late great John Conway (RIP). (Which in fact I did when I bought my first computer for college in the early 90s)
The board game life apparently goes back to the 1860s and called originally "The Checkered Game of Life".
I played a newer version of Life last Christmas with the nieces, and of course they made some changes for the times, but also changed the games dynamics somewhat substantially. (the one I remember most is there's no more insurance. So no more 'Car Accident!? (smug) But I'm insured! (/smug)'
although, am I Mandela'ing that commercial? I can't find it on the web and it's not in this collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-o8Spa4isQ
On “Christmas Spirit”
They were Polish/Lithuanian Catholics (though it was my mom's grandparents who were born in 'the old country' circa late1880s, my grandmother and all her siblings were born in the US circa 1910s). My mom's dad's side was German, but I don't think my mom's parents were well connected with his family (my maternal grandfather died when my mom was a teenager, and I never met any relatives on that side of the family in my life)
if I recall correctly, yes, everything stayed up until Jan 6 Three Kings.
I do think to clarify there were other decorations e.g. outdoor lights* earlier in December, but the tree itself was apparently the 24th.
*but not blinking ones because 'we're not running a bar and grill here'.
"
When my mom was a kid, the tradition was for Santa to bring the tree, so they didn't put anything up until Christmas Eve. Which must of been a New York City thing, because there's a Christmas I Love Lucy episode where the exact same thing happens.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=834054983697914
On “Recent Sporting News, Tersely Told”
A story from the following year on how McFarland’s fiancé and her family convinced him to retire from boxing.
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=RDP19140618.2.85&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------
On “When a Feller Needs Some Books”
Probably 'Alger's books for boys'.
On “When A Feller Needs a Santa Claus”
Portrait of The Old Man Parker and his brother as young men.
On “Oh Man! What For Christmas?”
According to page 3 of this pdf (glory to the St Louis Fed for its historical data and pubs), the average corporate bond was down to 4.25% by the end of 1922 (after paying out at 8% in 1920). Railroad bonds had interest rates about a percent higher, but the medium term trend was for interest rates to decline until 1929, when, well, everything went kablooey.
as a proxy for railroad stocks at the time the Dow Jones Transportation Index (a different thing from the more commonly known Dow Jones Industrial Average) went up between 7 to 16% for the next few years, until a small drop in 1929, and then 33% decline in 1930, and a 65%(!) decline in 1931
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Transportation_Average#Annual_returns
On “Ten Second News Links and Open Thread for the week of 11/21/2022”
I don't disagree, but also, this has been going on since at least the early 90s when credit cards went mainstream, and aggressively advertising in the student newspapers and direct mail was likely the thing that launched their trajectory towards ubiquity.
On “SMART-TD Union Rejects Deal, Rail Strike Looming Closer”
Management’s position is that moving around trains and the people that drive them is a well orchestrated ballet wherein a few people or a single person suddenly calling out sick causes a cascade of delays that disrupts the entire system. I.e. as if one needed to get a substitute teacher halfway across the country to your school or else the entire school would have to close.
Of course the counterpoint is “ok hire more fishin people so you have some redundancy in your personnel system!” And management’s counterpoint to that is ‘we don’t want to carry that payroll load in non-salary benefit expenses’ but also the usual form of ‘well no one wants to work anymore’.
Because as an industry they have the common problem where no one hired anyone for a decade or more because of a combo of (good) sector labor efficiency realignment and (bad) uncompetitive starting pay. So, the labor force is top heavy with people near or over retirement age, and retire is exactly what all those folks have been doing economy wide for two years.
On “The Dance Contestant”
I do always associate these dancethon stunts with 1950s teenagers, so it’s interesting to see this sort of cultural artifact occurring a generation earlier.
On “Taking Out The Magazines”
100 years ago version of Open browser tabs
On “The Second Table Squad”
I remember just eating on card tables as a kid during big family gatherings. But I only had two cousins close to my sister’s and I’s age. Everyone else was a half to almost a full generation off in either direction. (And between my parents generation on both sides moving every which way, plus the low Gen X kid count, ‘big family gatherings’ really didn’t happen anymore by the time I was a teenager and would have been eligible for the ‘adults table’).
(Frankly, my grandparents generation also didn’t do the best job at ensuring ‘family tradings’ would continue. There was a card game my father’s mother’s side in Nova Scotia would all play, called ‘auction’, aka as ‘45’. They would have huge card parties, but wouldn’t let any of the kids play even if the kid’s knew how. So naturally, once this generation literally died off, the parties, and even knowledge of the game, did so as well.
On “The Crowned Julia”
Percy Hammond was a theater critic for the New York Tribune, also Brigg's paper, by the time this was published. He was, apparently, kind of a big deal.
So I wonder if other names, as well as the name of the play, are also puns/references to real people and works.
On “Real Garage Man At Home”
Yeah, that's definitely a different take than this one on the profession and the social status it is perceived as having. And only a year apart, so it's not a change between artistic eras.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.