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Also by Ralph Keyes:

I Love It When You Talk Retro, March 2009
Hardcover

I LOVE IT WHEN YOU TALK RETRO
By: Ralph Keyes

Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech

St. Martin's Press
March 2009
On Sale: March 31, 2009
320 pages
ISBN: 0312340052
EAN: 9780312340056
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

Today’s 18-year-olds may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, where the term “stuck in a groove” comes from, why 1984 was a year unlike any other, how big a bread box is, how to get to Peyton Place, or what the term Watergate refers to. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. That could be a person (Mrs. Robinson), product (Edsel), past bestseller (Catch-22), radio or TV show (Gangbusters), comic strip (Alphonse and Gaston), or advertisement (Where’s the beef?) long forgotten. Such retroterms are words or phrases in current use whose origins lie in our past. Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through the phenomenon that is Retrotalk—a journey, oftentimes along the timelines of American history and the faultlines of culture, that will add to the word-lover’s store of trivia and obscure references.

Media Buzz

On The Media - June 6, 2009
Talk of the Nation - March 10, 2009