This week I had a conversation with a woman that was telling me a story about an elderly woman she knows. "She don’t know if she’s washing or hanging out," she said. I know what that means, but I got to thinking about my granddaughter’s generation. You’d likely get a blank stare if she heard this.
Today’s generation talks in abbreviations or acronyms. Hash tag this or that, lol, bff, and all that other stuff I do not understand. Forget foreign languages, we can’t talk from one generation to another.
How about "light a shuck," or "high tail?" Does "Half a bubble off plumb," or "lickety split," mean anything to you? If so, "you are too old to cut the mustard anymore." I grew up in the "beat" generation where "cool," "groovy," and "hairy" meant something. Older people looked at us like we were crazy, and we were.
When you factor in geographic location, actual communication really drops. Folks in East Texas use different phrases than those in New Jersey. It’s no wonder we have problems in this country. We have generations that don’t have any idea what the others are talking about. Instead of learning a foreign language, we should focus on learning to speak to each other first.
Just for the record, I’m still "cool and groovy."
Or, maybe I'm just "beat."
PMO
©2015
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