Isn’t it funny how society circles and circles around itself? How all teenagers and children think they’re discovering things for the first time, but it’s mostly just the same stuff their parents, and their grandparents, went through. I cringe now when I remember coming home from university brimming with knowledge that I thought I was new, and regaling my long-suffering parents with all these facts and opinions that seemed so revolutionary. Philosophies, films, books I felt I had discovered, but had probably been on the syllabus for decades. Similarly, when you fall in love with a new song, only for your parents to blow your mind by saying ‘Oh yeah I liked that when blah blah blah sang it,’ Er what?!
When I was about 14, I returned from summer camp buzzing with happiness and confidence after a week adventuring.
‘Guess what?’ I said to my mum. ‘We made up a new word, it’s so funny. We called each other Bint! You know like Lindt chocolate but with a B.’
My mum smiled weakly. I’m not even sure she could formulate a response. Makes me laugh now to think of this pack of 14-year-olds running around thinking they’d made up a cute squad name, when in actual fact they might as well have been yelling ‘slag’ at each other across the Mendip Hills.
I suppose that’s why each generation moulds language for their own uses. It used to irritate me that younger generations change words and their meanings so haphazardly. But of course, we did it too. And we were just as annoying. The world spins round and round and so does society. Teens all go through the same journey, discovering feelings and opinions, deciding what’s in and what’s not. We all need to feel that we are different, we all need to feel that our generation is unique. That’s the way it should be.
We’re all different and we’re all the same. It’s cool. Or should I say chill, kewl, sick, dope, killer, slay…
Ruth x
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