NAUGHTY

I spotted a “Yahoo” News Headline the other day (030712) which read as follows “France to punish naughty stars” and, much as the word had done when it was repeated ad nauseum in a book that I was reading earlier in the year, it really, really bothered me.

Can you guess which word I’m talking about, boys and girls…?

No, Rosemary, it wasn’t “France…”

That’s right, Geoffrey, the word was “Naughty…”

Yes, there was a clue at the top of the page. Well spotted, Miranda...

George… Don’t do that…!

I’m sorry but “naughty” is a bloody stupid and really childish word that really has no place being used by adults in a headline like that, or indeed (in my less than humble opinion), in any other context other than a “suggestive” one and even then, to be perfectly honest with you, I still think that it’s more than a little bit lame.

But then this is symptomatic of the general descent into childishness that seems to have become prevalent over the past few years in our culture, or maybe it’s just that we’ve become far too obsessed with becoming “best mates” with our offspring instead of acting like the “grown-up” people that we’re supposed to be.

You’re supposed to be their parent, not their friend…

I mean, I’m sure it’s really nice if you can somehow manage to be both, but really the first should always take priority over the second otherwise they’ll never learn the basics about how the world works.

You know, basic respect, tolerance, that kind of thing…

But then, this was never intended to be some kind of lecture on basic parenting. After all, I’m hardly qualified to comment on such things. I do, however, get heartily sick and tired of seeing and reading grown adults using inane, kindergarten expressions like “Three more sleeps” when they’re supposed to be communicating with other adults.

It is, quite frankly, a bit pathetic.

I got into trouble last year for pointing out that using the term “with the angels” when you basically mean “dead” is also a rather childish way to express yourself in adult company. It’s all very well using such terms when you’re trying to explain such things to an eight-year old, but when you are talking to someone your own age, and your own age is anything over about fifteen, then it just makes you sound like a simpleton.

Are you allowed to say “simpleton” any more…? It’s so hard to keep up with what’s acceptable these days...

The problem is that nowadays most people’s public interactions, especially via the web, are no longer spent in “adult” company. Perhaps when we venture into these “social domains” we are afraid that they’re really only places where “the kids” should be allowed to hang out, and we worry that we might be “found out” if we use proper adult terminology.

“Aaaarh! Sir! Look! He’s a growed!!!”

Or rather they are hanging around with other adults, but it’s mostly amongst adults who are generally behaving just like children and it is, quite frankly rather pathetic. I know that I keep using that word “pathetic” (or would you prefer it if I referred to it as “the ‘P’ word…?”) but I really can’t think of a better one…

Recently I got an actual, genuine, professional email in the course of my work that actually used the term “they’re so tight!” in relation to someone not allowing then to have their way over something, and it really made me grind my teeth, especially as I’m supposed to have a certain amount of respect for the person who wrote it.

But then we do live in a “youth obsessed” culture where nobody in it seems capable of wanting to grow old gracefully or with any semblance of dignity. Instead they want to hang on to some childish infantile notion of what it is to be “young” far, far beyond the point where it is really acceptable.

And still they don’t realise how ridiculous it makes them seem.

Especially to the “youngsters” that they’re trying to pass themselves off as being the contempories of.

They might still go out and buy the trendy shoes but the genuinely young girls will clock the shopping bag, snigger at each other, and will still be whispering to each other as you leave the shop “Isn’t she a bit old to be wearing those…?”

We also live in a culture where it can be pretty great to be old if you’ve got your health, less so if you don’t. After all, we now have a society where film directors like Clint Eastwood and actors like William Shatner can be working in their eighties, but also one in which the majority of the insurance assessors, usually in their twenties, decide that it’s not safe for people “that old” to be in any other environment other than “a home” and so perfectly healthy people find that they are unable to work because there’s no cover available…

Surveys keep on telling us how to live to be 100 and yet they fail to point out that being 100 can be a pretty dreadful thing, especially if your nervous system packed up when you were in your fifties, and being 100 is no great shakes either when all of your contemporaries “popped off” (all right, so as not to be hoisted up by my own pet toad, I’ll use the proper word, DIED) in their seventies.

There is a growing sense that the young and the not so young are now at loggerheads, mostly because of the ineptitude of those handling the economy. Rights to pensions and cuts to benefits seem to be offending the sense of entitlement at both ends of the spectrum, but, when you start to blur what it is to be “young” nobody really ends up with any idea of where they are supposed to be in the great arc of life, and it’s about time one or two of us started acting our age and behaving with a bit more dignity.

Laters, Dudes…

(First published in “The Lesser Blogfordshire Alternative” July 26th 2012)