Saturday, January 16, 2010

That's a word?

Chapter 1: Tess, a 15 year old from Queens, is grounded for five weeks by her parents for drinking and missing curfew.
Chapter 2: Tess starts a Facebook group, 1000 to get tess ungrounded, to rally support against the punishment.
Chapter 3: No go. Parents remain unmoved and Tess remains grounded.
Shocker.

So I know a lot of people are interested in this "unground Tess" story and movement because of what it represents technologically, socially and maybe even psychographically in today's world.

Sure, I can see that. Sort of. Though I have to wonder, what 15 year old really thinks getting a petition from her peers is going to sway her parents? But anyway, there it is, a human interest story about the intersection of adolescence, social networking, the generation gap, autonomy, blah, blah, blah.

Here's what I'm interested in. When did "groundation" become a word? The 15 year old used it to refer to her punishment... and the intrepid reporter promptly adopted it, sans quotes. This is how bad things start, folks. One person doesn't stand up for what's right, and the next thing you know, an entire generation of people are convinced that "groundation" is a real word. Like, that's so not right.

1 comment:

g said...

this is a comment