Dealing with postcards of other days and ways can bring me to the occasional “Huh?” moment. While this can be entertaining to onlookers, it DOES leave me with the problem of providing footnotes to my wares. Take this entertaining cartoon, in which our hero, from out of town, asks a policeman, “So, Mr. Watchman, where are the cows?” This depends on your knowing that the major shopping district in Berlin is Kurfurstendamm, that this is usually abbreviated Ku-damm (ssee the sign?), and that “kuh” is a German word for…it’s like a tourist complaining he didn’t see anyone rowing on Rodeo Drive.
Sometimes it’s not so much a matter of language as one of culture. The Polish inscription on this picture of birds and colored eggs is quite clear. It says “Merry Christmas.” This is NOT an ethnic joke: just because you and yours like colored eggs at Easter doesn’t mean EVERYBODY does.
With homegrown cards, it’s a matter of time, and how, in passing, time takes with it jokes which made sense to a decade, a generation, or an era. This card, for example, is still fun in an era when “generic” is now used only for prescription drugs. But there was a time when “Generic” was the new way to save: the product offered the basic ingredients in a plain black and white container without all the hype that drove the price up. At its peak, you could even buy from a line of generic novels, labeled simply “Western”, “Romance” or “Mystery.” The joke has faded, and we now buy “Store brands”.
The Two Little Spooners appeared in our ice cream blog, and I hope you already spotted the joke. Because they are making eyes at each other, we know they’re sweethearts, and could be said to be “spooning”. The word has undergone certain changes in our time: couples who date still occasionally spoon, but it means something somewhat otherly.
We have mentioned this question before: once upon a time, postcards were replete with pictures of young ladies picking up photos and talking about how well they had developed. How many years has ti been since you had to pick up pictures somewhere? And how long since those pictures had to be developed? (Postcards with gags about ladies who were well-developed but negative add another layer of incomprehensibility to the modern age.)
Someday will write again about how much we owe to geeks in their attics and garages: the camera, the automobile, the personal computer, and, here, the radio. But the fact that his contributions to science are a hundred years gone is not what dooms the joke to a modern generation as the technical terms. Who still uses, or even sees, an aerial?
And THIS radio enthusiast is not so much hampered by the fact that his descendants don’t have to wire the place for a radio, nor that few of us understand what an “accumulator” did for your radio. The problem is that since we no longer have chamberpots under the bed (get it? Accumulator?) the joke is not going to find a home here.
Here’s another language problem. Not the lacing of a corset: corsets and their laces keep going out of style and coming back again. It’s the use of “lacing” to mean a fierce scolding or even beating. The joke lies in the size difference and the realization that this is the only sort of lacing this chap dares give his wife, whatever he may say about it to friends.
The thing is that the passage of time doesn’t NEED to be a limiting factor. The tradition of letting ladies propose to men only during Leap Year is relegated to dusty corners of the Interwebs now, but the meaning of the joke is clear, and the situation is eternal. (And I wish I knew what artist had done such an excellent job of violence, shock, and awe. That kind of talent also never goes obsolete.)
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