I do recognise I’m no longer down with the kids. Probably even using the phrase “down with the kids” demonstrates just how un-down with the kids I really am. A bit like when an uncle used to ask my brothers and me back in the Eighties if we’d heard any “groovy tunes” recently and it sent us into paroxysms of laughter.
Times change, and language changes with it, and there’s no point in fighting it. Whenever my children say they are “excited for” something, it’s like nails down a blackboard (a black-painted flat surface; used to be in every classroom). I’ve given up explaining that you can be excited FOR someone, but you get excited ABOUT things. Yeah, whevs, Dad.
I have the same reaction to the use of the word “hack”. My understanding is that a hack is what we fuddy-duddies used to call a “tip”, as in “ ‘Can’t afford a personalised number plate? Why not change your name by deed poll instead’, writes Brian LV66 TKJ of Windsor.” That kind of thing.
But then I got an email asking if I wanted to share the “clever hack” for re-creating a McDonald’s McMuffin using ingredients from Aldi. That’s not a hack; it’s a recipe, surely?
Anyway, that’s nothing compared with the confusion over the word “mindful”. Everything’s mindful these days. Cross-country skiing is mindful skiing, hill-walking is mindful trekking, and veganism is mindful eating.
What of drinking though? I’ve heard “mindful” applied to low-alcohol cocktails, alcohol-free wine, CBD-infused beers, full-strength unfiltered vodka and vitamin-boosted soft drinks.
It’s all so confusing. Could it be that the word “mindful” actually means bugger all?
