Praise for I LOVE IT WHEN YOU TALK RETRO:
"The phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” is a mystery to young people today, as is “45rpm.” Even older folks don’t know the origins of “raked over the coals” and “cut to the chase.” Keyes (The Quote Verifier) uses his skill as a sleuth of sources to track what he calls “retrotalk”: “a slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena.” He surveys the origins of “verbal fossils” from commercials (Kodak moment), jurisprudence (Twinkie defense), movies (pod people), cartoons (Caspar Milquetoast) and literature (brave new world). Some pop permutations percolated over decades: Radio’s Take It or Leave It spawned a catch phrase so popular the program was retitled The $64 Question and later returned as TV’s The $64,000 Question. Keyes’s own book Is There Life After High School? became both a Broadway musical and a catch phrase. Some entries are self-evident or have speculative origins, but Keyes’s nonacademic style and probing research make this both an entertaining read and a valuable reference work."--Publishers Weekly
“At last, a genuine study of the sort of history you will actually want to know about. This book reveals the root of a large part of our culture and the way modern language has developed.”--Albert Jack, author of Red Herrings and White Elephants and Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep
“We love I Love It When You Talk Retro. How modern language came to be, and how it trickles into our daily speech is a fascinating subject. Ralph Keyes has done a fine job.”--Jane and Michael Stern, authors of The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, The Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, and Roadfood
“A fun, fact-packed and eminently browsable guide, which cuts the mustard, hangs a few myths out to dry, and should play in Peoria.”--Henry Hitchings, author of The Secret Life of Words
“Everyone needs this book. Younger people need it to decipher the allusions and metaphors of their elders and older people need it to remind them of the days when today’s retro was cutting edge. Ralph Keyes has outdone himself with this intensely useful and highly entertaining work. I Love It When You Talk Retro is an absolute gem.”--Paul Dickson, author of The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Family Words, and War Slang
