I was chatting with a friend recently who has a young child—she is my age, but her child is preschool age and she was sharing that she is becoming a master at translating her child’s version of the English language. She expressed how great it will be when her kid gets older and she doesn’t have to serve as translator. “Honey,” I said, “Have you tried to talk to a teenager lately?”
I used to be cool and hip. As a matter of fact, as an English major specializing in the post-modern and modern era—I used to think I was pretty hip on the modern vernacular of the English language. Okay, fast forward a decade or so and I have no idea what my kids are talking about half the time. I figure just about the time I get it all down, they will outgrow it and move on into adulthood. It’s hard for me to imagine them still using some of the silly slang once they are over the age of twenty, after all, I never refer to things as being “rad” anymore or say “gag me with a spoon” over things I don’t approve of.
So, I try to translate, I try to figure out if “dank” is good or bad and when I’m being “dissed”. To be honest, I sometimes think it was easier and I was mastering their own version of toddler-speak—at least they outgrew that in a matter of months. It wasn’t like the teenager and five or six long years of ever-evolving slang and pop culture vernacular. Toddler speak is sort of an individualized short-term language fraught with cute expressions and earnest attempts at communication. Teenage speak is really a secret code designed to annoy and aggravate anyone over the age of thirty.
Also: If it Wasn’t For Teens, I’d Be Technologically Challenged
When Do I Get to Be Smarter Again?
When Your Child Ignores You in Public