archaic!

[spatch]

I was standing in a way-too-long line at CVS today when a few cashiers ran up to the front to help with the purchases.

"Want me to ring them up here?" one cashier asked her manager, standing by a cash register. "Or is it still broken? Should I go ring over there?" Then she stood at the working register and said "Next person in line, I can ring you up over here!"

And then I realized: cash registers haven't rung for a very very long time. You remember those old lovely cast-iron cash registers with the little tabs for each monetary amount, and the "ka-ching!" of the cash drawer opening. We don't seem to use them anymore -- yet we still use "ring" as a verb for commerce-making and cash register button-pushing. A lovely little archaic word now that I think about it and honestly sounds a heck of a lot better than "beep" which would be the modern equivalent (and even then not all registers beep anymore.)

Heck, we don't even have a "ka-ching!" sound anymore, either, but everybody knows what it means: MAZUMA IN THE BANK!


Previously in this journal we discussed other lovely modern anachronisms such as mimeographs, the "color of a television turned to a dead channel" and typewriters. Now I got a new one to add to the list.

Feel old yet?

Comments

[aussie-nyc.livejournal.com]

I tried to crank out some more examples but I ran out of steam.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Also, nobody "dials" a telephone anymore, but we say we do.

[arielblue.livejournal.com]

And then there's "the press."

[guxx.livejournal.com]

Take a ride with me to George's Green Island Diner in picturesque Worcester and we'll eat at the counter and then you will see George ring up our purchases with one of those real ka-ching registers with the archaic typewriter-like buttons.

[guxx.livejournal.com]

Whoa!

You actually go up to people and say, "I've been checking you out from across the way, and I'd really love to dial your digit but I don't know your number. Whadaya say, hunk?"

I haven't associated dialing with numbers in a while.

[spatch]

You had me at "diner." I'm in.

[annilita.livejournal.com]

I taught Kai about "snow" a couple of weeks ago, and ever since then, she's been running up to our oldish TV and randomly pushing buttons until she hits the TV/VCR button, then she'll yell "SNOW!" and run away.

[heathbar27.livejournal.com]

Want to hear something even more ancient? I can still remember being waited on at the neighborhood DQ where they added up all your prices by hand with pencil and little pad of white notepaper (and it was rare to see anything written down over a dollar, at least in our family!), calculated the tax by looking on a giant chart taped to the counter, and made change out of a box. Old skool!

[markm.livejournal.com]

...color of a television, turned to a dead channel...

[spatch]

CAPTAIN PARAPHRASE STRIKES AGAIN
UP UP AND OVER THERE
KPWAAAANNNNNNNNNNG

[storme]

My parents have one of those old cash registers in their living room, gathering dust. I wonder if it's still working.

Bimbo's supper club

[daisyglaze.livejournal.com]

In Sam Clam's Disco also has a big KA-CHING register but they've got RULES and LAWS that say that they must maintain a 1931-style atmosphere at all ze times, and therefore they do silly things like NOT TAKE CREDIT CARDS. GRRR.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

"rolling down" the window

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I had thought of this and after reading your comment thought "wait, does anyone actually say this anymore," before I remembered Anna Belknap on Medical Investigation this week saying to the judge "I already dialed the number." So there.

[guxx.livejournal.com]

My last car had window rollers.

Keith

[(Anonymous)]

You spin quite a yarn, Spatch.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

I realized too late that I asked the young woman working at Newbury Comics today for help "finding an album".

Strangely, it's an album whose lyrics include the word "mazuma", only the second time I've ever heard that particular term used. How's that for synchronicity?

[saint-buddha.livejournal.com]

They still do that at Erma's Original Frozen Custard in Utica, MI.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

There's a second-hand clothes shop in Exeter that has an old KA-CHING cash register.

The clothes are appallingly overpriced, but you can buy all sorts of random sweets there too, and it's fun to buy a black fedora and a gummy worm at the same time.

[markm.livejournal.com]

You have defeated me this time, Captain, but I shall have my revenge, oh yes I shall! Muha-muha-muha!