So u thnk todays youth has gone too far? Or is it bcs u dont want to undrstd it? SWYP? OMG not anotr boomer whng about 2days youth? Got news: AFAIK txt is new nrml. In 2days fast wrld, KISS!
OK, so we oldies have scratched our heads trying to decipher TXT abbreviations. (For those of you who are struggling with the above: IMHO = In My Humble Opinion, bcs = because, SWYP = So what’s your problem? OMG = Oh my god, AFAIK = As far as I know. KISS has been used for decades.
Of greater concern is the emerging bad habit of leaving out punctuation (and not just by young people!). The most popularly quoted case in point is ‘A woman without her man is nothing’. With punctuation: ‘A woman: without her, man is nothing.’ [Yes, Henrietta, you did tell me. Ad nauseam...] Or, as Shakespeare may have written:
‘Good Lementio, who calls at the gate?
‘My lord, a woman without; her man is nothing.
‘Bid her enter then, and show her man to the livery.
But I digress… May is Youth Service Month. Throughout the world, Rotary clubs expend serious time, money and effort on Youth projects. Seeing that modern youth seems to mostly ignore convention on many fronts, are our hard raised funds really well spent?
OK, let me go back a little, say 20 years. Young people (and those young at heart) embraced email with gusto. But there were still an awful lot of people who refused to participate in this novel method of communication and continued… faxing. Yes, they did!
Let’s go back another score years (well, almost): I recall, in 1983, being given a demonstration of that newfangled device, the facsimile machine. The salesman carefully placed the heavy $3,500 device (in 1984 dollars!) on a desk, laboriously connected it to a phone line, phoned his Sydney office to make sure they were ready to receive. He faxed one of our letterheads and 10 minutes later they faxed it back with a few added scribbles on it. My boss (then in his mid sixties) said: “No way! Who would spend that sort of money when you can buy a stamp and stick it in an envelope??”
Go back another generation. I studied for my Diploma of Commerce in Switzerland in the mid sixties. One of the “must master” items was correct formal business correspondence. Letters would start with “Sehr geehrter Herr [name]” (translated: Most honoured Mister [name]); this applied even if the addressee was anything but honourable. We young turks all rebelled about this ridiculously formal method of addressing but those were the rules. Today? Most emails start off with nothing but the first name, or, if you really want to be formal, Hi Jack, Hello John, Dear Mary…)
SWUP? Language and methods continually evolve, particularly as we move from the written to the spoken word - as in listening to podcasts or talking into our Smartphone “OK Google, what time is our Zoom meeting today?”
But what has changed very little over the decades, indeed over centuries, millennia, is leadership. Leadership can be learned. Leadership can be coached. Rotary’s Youth programs are just as important today as they have always been. The current COVID crisis has stopped (for the moment) MUNA, RYLA, RYPEN and a dozen other acronyms. But -pandemics permitting- next year’s National Youth Science Forum in 2021 is almost certainly going to happen, so will other Youth events. According to the ABS, our target demographic (aged 14 – 24), make up 14% of our population. That’s 3 ½ Million people. Without resorting to platitudes, it is our responsibility to help the generation following us to maximize their leadership potential. Yeah – u rely dont get how awesome an opp u provide to young ppl and u shud all b very proud of ur work!
Franz Huber
Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise Inc