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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Buggy Whip Makers"
I was at the Doctor's office and a young intern was doing my check-up. She asked me what I do for a living and I told her I changed jobs a few years ago because I was a "Buggy Whip Maker". That is my former job was phased out due to technology.
She did not know what the expression meant. I thought that was general shorthand in the culture for this. Apparently younger people don't know the saying.
So two things come to mind, surprise that the expression isn't still in common use and wondering what has replaced it. (I also said "Key Punch Operator" but she didn't recognize that either.)
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Aristus
(66,275 posts)the American automotive industry would never have gotten off the ground.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)and way outbid them.
sort of sarcasm...
rock
(13,218 posts)One can of course resort to the literal: doing an obsolete job/making an obsolete product. Ah the youth of today. (If only I could be one.)
valerief
(53,235 posts)tridim
(45,358 posts)Just wondering why horse whips were called buggy whips.
bluesbassman
(19,358 posts)My dad had the same black Bell Telephone rotary dial on his home office desk until the mid '80s. I just upgraded my iPhone from a 3 to a 5, but right before I did my son's 20 year old gf saw me using the 3 and said "is that an iPhone 3? How retro!"
MADem
(135,425 posts)Yes, we also have some wireless ones, but that's our go-to in a power outage.
You could KILL someone with one of those--I mean, beat them down and to death. This is not something I would recommend, of course, but the point I am trying to convey is that they are very heavy, very sturdy, very solidly constructed items.
edhopper
(33,467 posts)made to last, not be replaced every year.
bluesbassman
(19,358 posts)My dad's had one of those 30' handset extension cords and he would walk around while talking and invariably the reciever would get dragged of the desk and crash to the floor. Kept on working like nothing happened.
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)Modem salesman
Google wave sysadmin
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,311 posts)Kids these days.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,817 posts)This was the late 90's and I assumed it was a standard expression of obsolete tech.
We had admins complaining that some people would stumble onto it out of context and think "Buggy Whip Manufacturing" was a real program. Others had no idea of the reference.
edhopper
(33,467 posts)a bunch of kids were painting the iron fence. I said, "Don't trick anyone else into painting it for you." Got a few giggles, but don't know if they got the joke.
SCUBANOW
(92 posts)For using racist language. Sad but true.
Orrex
(63,169 posts)But I've never heard the phrase "buggy whip maker" in my life.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Soon after the turn of the last century, he converted his shop into a garage for automobiles, and was able to stay in business an additional 20 to 30 years or so.
There are still garages around here that advertise what they did in the past, one up the street from me has a mural on the side of its building that depicts what they did in the 1890s or so, repairing wagons and horse drawn carriages. Oddly enough, in many cases, it seems like the tools were mostly the same, at least at first. Probably no surprise given that some of the first automobiles were literally horseless carriages, built on the chassis of carriages still pulled by horses.