Tuesday, June 25, 2013

"It's fine" and the Language of Olds

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For years now, if we offer the boys something and they decline, they'll say, "It's fine."

Like: 
"Do you want some more smoothie?"
"It's fine."

And every time we say:
"What's that mean - 'it's fine'?"
"No, it's fine, I don't want any smoothie right now."

But we don't break them of the phrase, and I asked Monica, who's off running around the lakes and hiking trails with kids all summer, whether other kids do that.  "All the time," she says, "and I'm always like, I don't know what you mean, 'It's fine.'"

So this is what it's like to be old and annoyed by the language choices of the young.  We baffled and bothered our elders with our own innovations -- replacing "say" with "is like" for example.  So what goes around comes around.  Ah well.  

Nico listening to an old person


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