PenPenWrites

Whenever I use a term from my youth–like “wasn’t that a hoot” to mean, “wasn’t that funny”–I feel I have to apologize to my grandkids for being out of date, for using a phrase that’s totally dated. But now I find out that the slang we bandied about when we were in our high school and college is coming back, baby.
Thus spake the NYT in an article with the hip headline, “Why Kids Are Starting to Sound like Their Grandparents.”

• “Language change is a team sport,” a sociolinguist explained to the Times. “You cannot get it going by yourself.” Rather, the spread of a new word, or the rebirth of an old one, begins when a given group of cool kids starts using it.

That’s why, whether we elders know it or not, “sheesh” and “goon” and “yap”–the delightful gift of gab–are being used by cool kids of the Gen Alpha generation.

What could be more of a hoot than being groovy again.

painting credit: Tamara de Lempicka, “Tamara in a Green Bugatti”