Our Missouri law hawk Taylor was out of town at a board meeting in Oregon (shoutout Brian’s Cabinets, if you need beautiful custom cabinets anywhere near Bend call us…or hey, call us from anywhere, one of our growth objectives is to geographically stretch) when I had the difficult conversation with Holly about her boyfriend parking in our lot around back. Remember that it was fine that he did so, but the conversation was difficult because Gen Z Holly thought I was angry about it because I responded to her alerting me that this would be happening with a thumbs up and a sentence that ended with a period. 

The point is that I wanted to make Taylor aware, because we both have daughters approaching that vintage and because he is significantly more of a curmudgeon and grammarian than me, that thumbs up are hostile and periods sarcastic and condescending. In other words, he (and I…we…all?)  should be careful about using them.

Yet he thought that was ridiculous. How could something like a thumbs up mean its opposite? So I pointed out that language is a funny and relative thing. After all, something that is “bad,” to our generation, might be bad or good. But something that is “ass” is bad. Yet something that is “bad ass” is really good.

But, I said, imagine telling your mom that something you did was bad ass. She wouldn’t know to be proud of you for that.

As we get older we all have a choice: to be sticklers about what we think we know or open to what’s happening now in the world around us. But it’s also not either/or. If you keep the good from the one and mix it with the good of the other, well, that’s progress.

So have a great weekend. Or have a great weekend! Or maybe have a great weekend LOL!!!

(One of those does seem more fun; maybe Gen Z is onto something…)

– Tim

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