Tuesday, July 14, 2009

same words, different meanings

from time to time i come across words or sayings that only make sense to my generation and vice versa with someone from another generation. for example, today i was having lunch with my boss and my intern and the intern and i were talking about a little kids hair and we described it as "weird". really, its cute hair...but its A LOT for a kid to have and the color is a little extreme and when we met the child, she was really upset and so her hair was even more wild than usual, im sure. anyway, my boss could not understand why we called the hair weird and said it was not weird, but beautiful. my intern and i both cracked up at this and said it wasnt a bad thing, it was just, you know..kind a weird head of hair, but cute too and not weird like she was thinking, like bad. my boss said it was inappropriate usage of the word weird and the hair was, in fact, not weird. this made my intern and me crack up again and we just shrugged and blamed it on our generational definition! then i thought about it and realized, i have had this very same convo with my mom about a few words. for example, she and i have very different meanings of the words "hooked up". today, we all (ppl my age, i mean) know what these words means...but when my mom uses them, she really just means that two people met up. my mom and i know that we use the words differently, but still each and every time my mom uses the words with me shes like, "tom and nancy hooked up on saturday...oh well, you know what i mean..they didnt 'hook up' like you say, but you know, well they just got together" im like, i knoow mom! haha she clarifys each time! so funny! then my intern told me another example when she was talking to her mom and described someone as a "tool" and her mom just did not get the explanation. i tried to think about this and realized that all i can think of to describe a "tool" is someone who is a tool...makes it a tricky thing to define! haha anyway, anyone know any other words or phrases that us youngins use today that ppl from other generations just dont seem to get??

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