you can correct a teenager or whatever, and they may or may not listen to you, but if they and the rest of their generation keep using a word how they understand it, then the word essentially changes definition, and the people who write the dictionaries are forced to update their dictionaries to reflect popular usage. This is how it's always worked, and it's why an English dictionary from 1600 has a lot of different meanings than an English dictionary from 2023. It's why you can see a word often has way different meaning in its etymology than it does from its current use. Even important words. not tryna give you a hard time. I've just been told that, if people collectively start using a word differently, it can decouple from its etymology. I can think of plenty of examples
"naughty" in the 1300s used to mean you didn't have stuff, i.e. you had naught. You were impoverished. Then it came to mean that you didn't have morals (in a serious way), then it came to mean you were simply badly behaved (i.e. not in a serious way, like a child), then it started to get associated with its various sexual meanings in the 1860s.
"Spinster" used to mean a woman who spins thread. Now it is almost exclusively used to refer to an unmarried woman, whether or not she spins thread for a living.
"guy" in English used to mean "a grotesque or poorly dressed person", and was associated with effigies of Guy Fawkes that protestants used to burn. Only in the US in the 1800s did it start to refer to men in general, and now, in modern times, we often use it as a gender neutral term when applied to a group: "you guys wanna get lunch?" can often be directed at an intersex group.
"senile" used to simply mean old, not necessarily suffering from dementia
in old english "meat" used to refer to solid food in general, and not specifically animals.
awful used to mean "worthy of awe" (whether good or bad) and not simply "tremendously bad" i.e. the "awful power of God"
"silly" used to mean "happy, fortuitous, prosperous" then later came to mean "innocent, harmless, pitiable," then finally came to mean "weak, foolish, lacking in reason"
so if a bunch of teenagers decide that "boomer" means anyone 20 years older than them, then that's fine. They'll just have to accept becoming boomers themselves eventually
if they and the rest of their generation keep using a word how they understand it
Eventually, I'll be dead and I won't care.
the people who write the dictionaries are forced to update their dictionaries to reflect popular usage
They absolutely are not. Dictionaries are notorious for hanging on to definitions decades out of date and failing to include new words until they've been in circulation for just as long.
so if a bunch of teenagers decide that "boomer" means anyone 20 years older than them, then that's fine.
Or maybe it won't be, as the generation after that considers it a vulgar slur and shames folks for its use (not unlike how the r-word went from a casual invective to bannable offense).
Even then, internet slang has a habit of gaining and losing fashion relatively quickly. You don't see many Zoomers using the terms "Epic" or "133+" casually anymore, so there's no reason to remind someone of the original terminology for long-form poetry or non-numeric terms of speech.
After all, I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary.
the r-word went from a casual invective to bannable offense
that's perfect proof of what I was talking about. Popular usage changed the meaning of that word from a medical description, to a casual invective, to a slur. You can see charities and such from the 1960s dedicated to helping "r word" children. Dictionaries have been updated to this effect too:
Popular usage changed the meaning of that word from a medical description, to a casual invective, to a slur.
Popular usage exaggerates the meaning from a mild medical descriptive to a slur. But the original meaning was couched within the language of eugenics, and was already a basis for cruel and clumsy medical policy. What ultimately changed was the explicit terminology applied to populations for the purpose of segregating, sterilizing, and exterminating whole populations. All that was left over was a school yard taunt that echoed the policies of a prior generation.
You can see charities and such from the 1960s dedicated to helping "r word" children.
Certainly fundraising off of it.
However, in the modern moment, what we've seen has been a shift from using the r-word to bandying about the terms "autism" and "Aspergers". These are fundamentally descriptions for overlapping conditions and their invective forms are even more broad based - intended to belittle any form of neurodivergence or social maladaption.
But this is exactly why scolding people for incorrect usage is often necessary. Confusing the terminology forces it out of proper usage and occludes the history that made the phrasing so dangerous to begin with. Its very difficult to even discuss historical eugenic policy (much less attempts to revive it in the modern era under euphemistic language), much less why it was such an abysmal methodology and why serious academics and activists discourage people from backwards attempts to categorize people in the modern day, if we have to constantly re-establish the definition of old words. Or, even worse, dodge censors whenever we cite historical works.
To bring all this back to "boomer", losing sight of the root terminology means losing sight of the socio-economic history around the term. The whole reason for the casual "OK, Boomer" retort stemmed from the enormous volume of mass media geared towards vilifying GenX and Millennials for failing to achieve economic roadmarks common to the prior generation.
It wasn't just "Lolz, taste in music" or generic commentary on age. It was an entire zeitgeist being contrasted with the current moment.
Descriptivism isn't the be all end all of what a word ought to mean. The easiest examples are slurs. For example, it doesn't matter if the vast majority of (cis) people do not consider the t-word to be a slur because frankly, their trash tier cis opinion doesn't matter. All that matter is trans people prescribe the t-word a slur, and whatever trans people prescribe it so, then it is so.
Note that the word "literal" still holds its original meaning. The turn of phrase is meant as exaggeration, not a change in formal definition. It has also fallen out of heavy use with more modern turns of phrase. So what "literally" means, as an adjective, is falling back into the traditional usage over time.
language changes over time due to how people use it. definitions are decided this way.
EDIT: This can be frustrating when we expect consistency or scientific precision
But the root of a word does not.
At some point, it is okay to hear a teenager use a term incorrectly and mention the derivation of the term.
you can correct a teenager or whatever, and they may or may not listen to you, but if they and the rest of their generation keep using a word how they understand it, then the word essentially changes definition, and the people who write the dictionaries are forced to update their dictionaries to reflect popular usage. This is how it's always worked, and it's why an English dictionary from 1600 has a lot of different meanings than an English dictionary from 2023. It's why you can see a word often has way different meaning in its etymology than it does from its current use. Even important words. not tryna give you a hard time. I've just been told that, if people collectively start using a word differently, it can decouple from its etymology. I can think of plenty of examples
so if a bunch of teenagers decide that "boomer" means anyone 20 years older than them, then that's fine. They'll just have to accept becoming boomers themselves eventually
Eventually, I'll be dead and I won't care.
They absolutely are not. Dictionaries are notorious for hanging on to definitions decades out of date and failing to include new words until they've been in circulation for just as long.
Or maybe it won't be, as the generation after that considers it a vulgar slur and shames folks for its use (not unlike how the r-word went from a casual invective to bannable offense).
Even then, internet slang has a habit of gaining and losing fashion relatively quickly. You don't see many Zoomers using the terms "Epic" or "133+" casually anymore, so there's no reason to remind someone of the original terminology for long-form poetry or non-numeric terms of speech.
After all, I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary.
It’ll happen to you!
that's perfect proof of what I was talking about. Popular usage changed the meaning of that word from a medical description, to a casual invective, to a slur. You can see charities and such from the 1960s dedicated to helping "r word" children. Dictionaries have been updated to this effect too:
CW: slur
Popular usage exaggerates the meaning from a mild medical descriptive to a slur. But the original meaning was couched within the language of eugenics, and was already a basis for cruel and clumsy medical policy. What ultimately changed was the explicit terminology applied to populations for the purpose of segregating, sterilizing, and exterminating whole populations. All that was left over was a school yard taunt that echoed the policies of a prior generation.
Certainly fundraising off of it.
However, in the modern moment, what we've seen has been a shift from using the r-word to bandying about the terms "autism" and "Aspergers". These are fundamentally descriptions for overlapping conditions and their invective forms are even more broad based - intended to belittle any form of neurodivergence or social maladaption.
But this is exactly why scolding people for incorrect usage is often necessary. Confusing the terminology forces it out of proper usage and occludes the history that made the phrasing so dangerous to begin with. Its very difficult to even discuss historical eugenic policy (much less attempts to revive it in the modern era under euphemistic language), much less why it was such an abysmal methodology and why serious academics and activists discourage people from backwards attempts to categorize people in the modern day, if we have to constantly re-establish the definition of old words. Or, even worse, dodge censors whenever we cite historical works.
To bring all this back to "boomer", losing sight of the root terminology means losing sight of the socio-economic history around the term. The whole reason for the casual "OK, Boomer" retort stemmed from the enormous volume of mass media geared towards vilifying GenX and Millennials for failing to achieve economic roadmarks common to the prior generation.
It wasn't just "Lolz, taste in music" or generic commentary on age. It was an entire zeitgeist being contrasted with the current moment.
Descriptivism isn't the be all end all of what a word ought to mean. The easiest examples are slurs. For example, it doesn't matter if the vast majority of (cis) people do not consider the t-word to be a slur because frankly, their trash tier cis opinion doesn't matter. All that matter is trans people prescribe the t-word a slur, and whatever trans people prescribe it so, then it is so.
boomer isn't a slur and that's what we were discussing
Teenagers actually control the English language, so any way they use a word is correct by definition. I don't like it either, but those are the rules
In the era of mass media, algorithmic censorship, and modern modes of manufacturing consent, that's simply not true.
A handful of senior script writers at Nickelodeon have more influence over teenage nomenclature than a thousand prom queens.
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Note that the word "literal" still holds its original meaning. The turn of phrase is meant as exaggeration, not a change in formal definition. It has also fallen out of heavy use with more modern turns of phrase. So what "literally" means, as an adjective, is falling back into the traditional usage over time.
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That's just another example of hyperbole.
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