American Friends - Please explain!

"Debutante"

#2 is sort of an old fashioned term: pharmacies used to have "soda-fountains" -- counters where you could get a soda, snack, maybe ice-cream. I guess it also refers to the machine that dispenses soda in a restaurant (when they're not from bottles or cans)

#3 is a college/university first year

#4 is a period for frats/sororities when you go around to the different orgs, check them out, get free pizza or whatver.

Soda fountain: http://www.guntersvillepd.com/Gone/Thomason%20Drug%20Store%20soda%20fountain%20where%20Wanda%20is%20now.jpg

Candystripers: high school-age volunteers at hospitals who gave sponge baths and washed people's hair and generally ran errands for hosp staff, girls only (I think), wore white-and-red striped uniforms to distinguish them from actual nurses.

Soda fountain: the high school hangout, sometimes located in a drugstore, which served cherry cokes and lemon cokes and Boston Coolers and ice cream sodas etc etc delicious! Long diner-style countertop with stools affixed to floor, poss. also booth seating, young man behind counter would scoop ice cream and operate the soda taps to fill orders (official title for that job is "soda jerk").

ihttp://www.sullivanet.com/pirateisland/myart/debutante.jpg

Candystriper = A kind of nurse, as of the mid-20th century -- I think they were young volunteers. Called "candy-stripers" because of candy-like stripes on the uniforms (think of a peppermint stick / candy cane). Usually employed as a joke synonym for "hot young nubile girlies," since they were young fresh new jolly innocent nurselets in titillating nurse outfits.

Soda Fountain = Also kind of mid-20th century. A bar/counter at which someone sells soda, floats, ice cream, etc. -- usually we think of them as attached to small-town drugstores, diners, or department stores. In a small mid-century US town, the soda fountain would be like a "bar" for teenagers, really -- the sort of place you might take your date to share a root beer float.

Freshman = First-year student at college/university OR in high school. Used for any four-year process, really, with the four years being designated Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior.

Sorority Rush = US college event. Basically a big ritual in which its decided what sororities (and also fraternities) freshmen will get into. Interested students of whatever year go to parties at sorority or fraternity houses, where they meet current members and are basically evaluated for possible membership. This goes on for like a week of parties and open-houses and general revelry, at the end of which there's some arcane system where people pick which fraternities/sororities they'd like to be in, and the houses themselves pick which people they'd like to admit, and somehow it all gets sorted out.

Pictures forthcoming.

When someone has done you a service, you show them gratitude by saying "Thank you!"

Seltzer's

It's a big high school football event (might be first or last home game?) There is usually a dance and a homecoming queen and king are picked to "represent" the school.

"Debutante"

This is a semi-antiquated term which used to refer to young relatively well-off ladies who had just entered "adult" society. They had their "debut" at coming out parties. FOr a while I think it generally came to mean young well-off women.

I think some schools may have a tradition where they play the same school every year, but this is not always the case. Typically, the various schools in the area will designate different Homecoming Weekends -- after all, not everyone can be the home team on the same day.

(might be first or last home game?)

I think it's usually in September or October -- so it's certainly possible it could be early enough to be the first home game, or late enough to be the last home game, but more than likely it's somewhere in the middle of the schedule.

Debutante = A young lady who is being introduced to society. "Society" in this case meaning upper-crust "society," scare quotes and all, which I assume you in the UK already know well enough about. At some point in their teenage years, the daughters of society types will "debut" as, well, new women on the scene, I guess. This happens at a debutante ball, and it's kind of more a Victorian than an American notion.

That's so sad. :'(

some of the fun stuff included:

dedicated house 'drug room' where a mountain of cocaine was usually out on the table

amusing aol 'away' messages

drunken sexual degradation at the hands of 'sisters'

i wanna be a sorority girl!

Not really.

My impression is that it was orig a European thing that carried over here because well-off families in the New World might be scattered to their various estates & plantations for most of the year but debs and their chaperones would take apartments in the city center to be on hand for a season/year of social festivities so that the boyz & gurlz would be forced into close contact and wooing (or SOMEthing) would ensue. I used to know a girl from err...Baton Rouge? who actually DID come out as a deb (as did her older sister) and people around town actually REMEMBER what year each girl debuted in.

a band girl was homecoming queen?? that doesnt sound right. has american television lied to me?

No, you're right to be skeptical, k. It was a bit of a coup. I think someone stuffed the ballot box. Actually, though, it was the first year that I could remember that a non-black girl was Homecoming Queen.

xxpost

I'm pretty sure it refers to alumni coming back to their alma mater, as stated above. My 5-year college reunion was held during Homecoming weekend.

Is this not where the term "Eligible Bachelor" arose?
Though "Beau" might fit with the frenchified "debutante".

Baby showers, Candied yams (sweet potato baked with marshmallows? and eaten with turkey? wtf?)

Friends, colleagues or family of expectant mummy invite people who bring presents? Something like that.

Gravy?

Paul Revere?

White Trash Debutantes close enough for you?

Beef jerky?

Strips of dried beef (or any meat actually)

Gravy?

creamy/saucy stuff that goes on top of meat and potatoes. bad for you.

Paul Revere?

Second track on the second side of first Beastie Boys album. oh wait. . .spy in the American Revolution who alerted the colonials that the British were coming.

"brown gravy" = beef/chicken/turkey gravy

"red gravy" (often, just "gravy") = marinara sauce

Baby shower = Event shortly before birth of child in which mother's female friends gather to bestow baby-related gifts and otherwise celebrate forthcoming baby.

Candied yams = Actually I think there's an actual difference between sweet potatoes and yams, the same sort of difference between white and yellow potatoes. Candied yams would be baked with a sweetish glazey thing, usually with cinnamon and a bit of marshmallow. They are sweet but not dessert-like.

Beef jerky = Strips of dried beef, chewy and yummy. Portable and good for snacking, making them popular for, e.g., hikers.

Gravy = Savory sauce, often made using meat drippings and thickened with flour. Spread atop meats and things like mashed potatoes.

Paul Revere = Boston silversmith and famed patriot who rode through the city alerting revolutionaries to the impending arrival of British forces. Revolutionary-hero status has made his silverwork quite valuable in the antique sense. (I wish I could make some kind of hilarious indie joke about how his silversmithing was pretty sub-par and why don't people appreciate the more obscure works of Jeremiah P Montrose, but I have this vague sense that he was actually a really good silversmith, too.)

- staind
- hot pockets
- kiwi in anything

-GOP - Grand Old Party - the nickname showed up in 1888:

Previously, the nickname had been used by Southern Democrats. After the Republicans won back the Presidency and Congress for the first time since the Grant administration, the Chicago Tribune proclaimed: "Let us be thankful that under the rule of the Grand Old Party ... these United States will resume the onward and upward march which the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884 partially arrested."

former debuatantes and soro chicks get together for fancy luncheons and community service.

http://img.mtv3.fi/mn_kuvat/mtv3/ohjelmat/sinkkuelamaa/304973.jpg

In the wikipedia entry for Lou Grant it says this:

It is one of four shows in the history of American television to have weekly finishes of first and dead last during its run, the others being AfterMASH, Cheers, and fellow Mary Tyler Moore spinoff Rhoda

Please explain "weekly finishes of first and dead last during its run". Thanks.

ratings of tv shows as measured by the nielsen company are done on a weekly basis. so these shows had at least one week as the top rated show in the country, and during the lifetime of the show, at least one week where they came in absolute last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

for example, after mash debuted at #1 i think because of the great interest after the orig series ended, but it was clear to all after one viewing that the show sucked so it dropped like a stone in the ratings until it hit bottom and was canceled

cheers took a good 2 seasons to find an audience so it must have finished last in its first season and then made a steady climb to the top

i'd bet lou grant finished last in its final season,some series stick around a season or two too long

some shows also don't do well in reruns, esp. dramas. summer used to be filled with reruns until networks figured out to put cheapo reality-type shows in their place to boost ratings. so, a show might be a relative hit on its first airing but do poorly on rerun (sometimes only a couple of months later),the rerun would still count in the nielsen tallies

velko are you a tv stats guy

lol misspent youth in front of tv

good, i was hoping there would be a slothful explanation for this burst of expertise.

; )

Thanks for that.

Might edit the wiki so that it makes sense for people who aren't from the USA. Some mention of ratings for instance.

am disappointed this thread isn't for people to explain why they have american friends.

;) good luck usa