In this case, at least, it was a genteel way of describing old-fashioned baksheesh.
It's even harder still, to describe the old fashioned painterly joy I feel when I spend time in the gallery looking at Cary's loose brushwork, offhand compositions and moody atmospheric washes.
It's fair to say that Dinsmore and his fellow Sun editorial executives were blind-sided by Murdoch's tweets in 2013 and last year in which he described Page 3 as "old fashioned" and implied that he was ready to change his mind.
On the downside, interviewees described letters as being old fashioned, time-consuming, a bit of a 'cop out' and able to be read by others.
Although Ukip has now banned its members from using the phrase, with its chairman describing it as "lazy" and "old fashioned", it remains to be seen whether Bloom will toe the party line.
In his judgment at the end of the £3m joint libel trial, Mitting described Rowland, as a "rather old fashioned police officer" who was "well-suited to his job" as a member of the Diplomatic Protection Group, and that he believed him.
"I would encourage and support and put my name and face to a product or even just as a consumer on the ones that are being grown, you know, the old school way of organic in, in good, healthy, rich soil...the old fashioned way," she described.
Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, has described Whelan's remarks about Jews as "old fashioned antisemitic tropes".
If you would use the words sexy or hot to describe it, it isn't right for an old fashioned Halloween.
"Mad Madeline," as he described her, wasn't dispensing bombs, but a good old fashioned commodity called common sense.
AN "old fashioned" novelist is like someone hired to describe the world to a blind person.
