Friday, October 24, 2008

Why Youthphemism?

No, I did not spell it incorrectly. It is different from youthemism, which means a "story or term invented for the purpose of explaining to a young child a concept or phenomenon that he or she is too young to properly understand." It means to say that the youth are at the receiving end; it is the adult who do the talking, the explaining, and the clarifying. The youth merely listen.

Let’s take a pause and be in touch with the reality even for a moment. Where is it written that the adult should only have the say on current events, on issues that affect everybody? Are the youth incapable of providing explanations to the complex phenomena? Are the youth incapable of making sense out of their surroundings? I don’t think so.

The youth of today are no longer the same as the youth of yesterday. I don’t know what caused this fundamental change but I do know that today’s youth have the capacity to make sense out of their surroundings. They know how to use the means at their disposal to chart their own future. They no longer wait for the adult to explain what is happening as they themselves know what is happening. They no longer wait for the go signal of the adult as they themselves know what to do. They can explain to themselves and to other people as well what is happening, using of course the words they know and understand.

In search therefore of an appropriate word to refer to the talk that is done and understood by the youth themselves, I coined the word "youthphemism." To understand the word, Mr. Zombie, my fourth year English teacher in high school, used to tell us, is to dissect the word. Now, let's dissect the word youthphemism.

Youthphemism comes from the word "youth" and from the Greek word "pheme."

The first word seemed to be self explanatory but a word or two must be said. It is hard to define the word youth because there are many people who considered themselves to be young—at heart. But you know who is young when you see one. More formally, the United Nations General Assembly defined youth as those people falling between the ages of 18 and 24. The word pheme on the other hand means “speech” or “speaking.” Youthphemism therefore means a speech by the youth.

Here at Youthphemism, a space is created where the youth speak.