Awhile back my son used to describe everything as ‘long’. If I asked him to do something, which he didn’t want to do like, tidy his room or redo his homework (putting in the effort that I was pretty certain his teach had in mind when she or he had set the assignment), he would slough in a way that is actually only physically possible if you are between the ages of 10- 19 (after that you seem to be subject to the same laws of body manipulation as the rest of us), throw back his head in despair and proclaim to the world, the universe and anyone else within earshot, who clearly would not have been in the slightest bit interested –‘that long! ‘.
The words would be accompanied by a sound that is best described as exaggerated hopelessness with a bit of pure drama queen. Such was the distress conveyed by his utterance that I would immediately go into 'don’t be such a drama queen' mode (which is long had for irritated and cross).’ What do you mean it’s long’ I would say. ‘It wont take more that x minutes if you just get on with it’ To which he’d reply with a look that clearly indicated that he thought that I was at least as dense as the school year below him if not more so –
‘no I mean its long’.
Possibly because I couldn’t be bothered to engage in yet another teenager drama I never gave any thought to this at the time ending the discourse with the mum’ s ‘in case of no time to discuss’ classic phrase
'just do it OK!
The words would be accompanied by a sound that is best described as exaggerated hopelessness with a bit of pure drama queen. Such was the distress conveyed by his utterance that I would immediately go into 'don’t be such a drama queen' mode (which is long had for irritated and cross).’ What do you mean it’s long’ I would say. ‘It wont take more that x minutes if you just get on with it’ To which he’d reply with a look that clearly indicated that he thought that I was at least as dense as the school year below him if not more so –
‘no I mean its long’.
Possibly because I couldn’t be bothered to engage in yet another teenager drama I never gave any thought to this at the time ending the discourse with the mum’ s ‘in case of no time to discuss’ classic phrase
'just do it OK!
Like all words of youth culture ‘long’ seemed to disappear from their vocabulary quickly so it wasn’t until recently when I have be buried in the attempts to get my business earning cash that the qualities of this word are now becoming abundantly clear to me.
My deep apologise son !
I get it ‘it’s long!’ Nothing else seems to describe the complete absence of will to want to get on with the tasks. I fully understand why I need to do them and I am more than capable of doing them, but ‘it’s long!'
I get it ‘it’s long!’ Nothing else seems to describe the complete absence of will to want to get on with the tasks. I fully understand why I need to do them and I am more than capable of doing them, but ‘it’s long!'
It’s long = I am so bored by the notion of doing that, that I can’t even be bothered to use the energy required to think up a credible excuse for not doing it.
It’s long= why me? You do it! Oops there is no one other than me to do it!
It’s long = I know of a million other things that I would rather do even if this is on the list of the top 10 things I need to do today.
It’s long. It’s long. It’s long.
You have to admit it - young people do have a way with language !
You have to admit it - young people do have a way with language !
They all like to think they made this up. We were saying things were "long" 20 years ago or more.
ReplyDeleteI know but let them have their illusion everything has been around before lol
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