It’s Only Words…

Everyone grows up with the lingo of their generation; usually ingrained in their youth. It’s a mix of slangs, colloquialism and often, as is typical with kids, some amount of neologisms as well.

TO and I have been spending quite a bit of time together in the last two months since his summer break started. It’s not always been a hoot but some incidents stand out for reasons which are so utterly hilarious but are also a sign of the times: kids growing up and teaching their parents a thing or two in the process.

I was playing a game on my tablet (which is often appropriated by TO for his games) and apparently I was taking too long with choosing the music I wanted to listen to while I played said games and it was cutting into TO’s leisure time way more than he was prepared to concede.

He got a bit testy and said, “C’mon on A..I need to start grinding soon if I want to win!” To which my reply was predictably, ” What do you need to grind?” The rest of the conversation went something like this:

TO: “You don’t actually have to grind anything, you have to do the grinding and get ahead!” Me: “I don’t think you’re using the word the way it’s meant to be used baby and if it is what I think it is, you’re WAAAY to young to be grinding!” TO: ” Everyone GRINDS! You’re SUPPOSED to be grinding! If you don’t grind you can’t get ahead!!” Me: “Ok now am sure you and I aren’t talking about the same thing!” TO: “Give me your phone! I want to show you how grinding is done. Me: “I know how grinding is done, it’s not something I want to watch with my teenager!

TO takes my phone from my hand, searches for grinding and finds the following meanings and visibly blanches at the final meaning and yells that it’s disgusting and is all wrong!

Ultimately we had to search for grinding+video games (see how keywords make a difference) and came up with the desired definition.

In the process of establishing what grinding truly is, I neither got to play my game nor did I get to listen to my songs and yet learnt two very crucial things: First, that it’s very important to listen to what the children are saying; these days even more so. Their world is very different from ours. Simple words and acts undergo changes and become something else entirely. And second: never get between a child who wants to grind their way up the points table on a stupid game!