Distinctions
While they refer to the same era, "old time" has a different connotation than the term fin de siècle (end of century). The latter evokes images of sophistication to the point of decadence, a connotation opposite to that suggested by "old timeyness".
Old timeyness overlaps somewhat with aspects of popular culture intended to evoke Victoriana or the Old West. Often, however, the three are distinguishable.
Evocations of Victoriana (and Edwardiana) typically highlight class differences, featuring (for example) aristocrats and gentry who are dandified or eccentric, in contrast to working class and poor folk who are Dickensian or exaggeratedly rustic in their costume and manner.
Old West themes differ from old timey themes in that they emphasize elements such as cowboys, firearms, horses, and drawled speech. However, aspects of Old West city or town life can overlap with old timeyness.
Read more about this topic: Old Time
Famous quotes containing the word distinctions:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.”
—Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)