Nothing better than sliced bread is an old-fashioned phrase that isn’t heard often these days in casual conversation. This phrase is usually used by people of a certain age, whose family members may have said it regularly to express their satisfaction or to offer a compliment to the baker. Now it can be used, like the rings on an old stump, to date the speaker. Most folks have accrued so many of these sayings, one only needs to count the number of times they are sprinkled in daily conversation to make an accurate guess about someone’s age.
As we move farther and farther away from the hearth and home of old, the familiarity achieved by saying them aloud is worth it. Trying to get someone to explain why they continue to use those old sayings, when they spend their days talking to all ages, is almost impossible. There are now a million other things that ARE better than sliced bread, including homemade unsliced bread.
The saying sets the tone for conversation as it recognizes the extra effort made by the baker. Finding a perfectly sliced home-baked loaf continues to be difficult these days. There are now many bakeries that sell their pre-sliced loaves, so variations of the original conversational prompt might be used appropriately. The use of old-fashioned sayings is often subconscious and when one or two erupts in the middle of a conversation, it often sets a lighter, comfortable tone.
Phrases one may have not heard in an extremely long time of their conversations over the years become sprinkled with sayings they swear they have never used, until they are reminded by their family and friends asking questions that have no discernable answer.
“Really?”
“Where did you come up with that one?”
My all-time favorite responses come from children, as they will pick some previous historical event, and ask perfectly innocently, “Were you here when the stagecoach ran?” or even better, “Did you get out of here before the Indian Agent was killed?” Time stretches endlessly both ahead and behind for these kids, so no use trying to set them straight. Moving on with the conversation and turning it into a history lesson about the origin of all of our sayings just won’t work, as another old saying comes to mind. It is better to let this one go unsaid though, as the upcoming technological changes will get rid of that one soon enough: “Time stops for no one.”
I might expect to hear a challenge to that saying soon enough. There is most likely a young inventor working on a patent for a new electronic device that guarantees the user an experience of feeling as if time has stopped completely. The newest interactive 3-D experiences offer the feeling that time has moved forward or back centuries to a different time completely. So once again before one hearkens back to the good old days, keep this in mind. Time, as we know it, stops for a little bit for some of us. We may get to the generation that takes the first “real” time travel in the future. Expect questions when you use that phrase soon and hear a groan or two come from one or two jaded mouths.
“Really?” or “Oh come on,where have you been all this time?”
By DOLLY VISCARDI – Special to the Herald Times
