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Generational Differences

JODIE: So you are obviously working with people, with youths, yourself so you are going to have, you know, kind of build a rapport with them yourself, aren’t you? You’re going to have to build up a relationship with them. Erm, that, I guess that’s difficult as well, isn’t it, in its own way?

STEPHEN: It is. Trying to get to speak to them first, but with me coming from like the same background as them, I can just go up to them and I can just talk, say “What’s happening, what’ve you been up to?” as though I am one of their boys, as though I’m one of their mates, so I am like on the same wavelength as them. So it’s easier for me.

PETER: So if you went to work in a pub in Widnes and someone come in and you’d say, “What would you like mate?” they say, “What are you going on about, I don’t even know what you are saying”. But say cos you’re in Speke and you know how to talk in Speke, then it’s easier..

JODIE: Lynnie, you work with youths. Is it, I mean obviously for yourself – you know, not like our chap here, you know, who is 19, he can get on well with youths and stuff - do you find it difficult or do you find it easy to build a rapport with kids?

LYNNIE: I think, it’s just about being on their level isn’t it? It’s like, even though I don’t go, “Now then kids what’s happening?” because that’s not how I talk generally, it’s respecting how they talk, but actually I think it’s just about being yourself because some of the things they yell, you think, “What are they yelling on about”? and you have to say, “What does that mean?”, because even though I think, even with having a 13 year old. daughter, I’m aware of what’s going on, they still come out with things, and I go like… you know if they are hungry they go, “I’m going for a fat munch.”. Like, a fat munch! What’s a fat munch? They come out with like bizarre ones, the kids that I work with, and I’m thinking, “What is that about?”. He said before, “It’s a beast”, which means it’s good. Or they’d say, “It’s laughing” like, “It’s laughing,” like it’s OK and that just means it’s good, and that they are happy with it. Instead of saying we’re happy or we’re buzzing, they’ll go “It’s laughing”. So it’s just getting used to all them things that they say.

PETER: Cheddered.

LYNNIE: You’re cheddared. Cheddar cheesed. Made up.

PETER: Yeah.

LYNNIE: So you see I’ve never heard that one but you’ll soon be able to pick up what they mean just by…

PETER: You’re buzzing.

LYNNIE: You’re buzzing. It’s just being… I don’t think… you bring yourself to their level but you don’t have to change who you are cos I don’t go, “Now then kid, what’s happening?” and I don’t think the kids would like me to either

JODIE: Karen, obviously yourself with two youngsters - erm, three youngsters sorry - and your husband. With being a housewife, that is… you ‘re a housewife, is that correct?

KAREN: I look after the elderly.

JODIE: You look after the elderly, well then you’ve got a completely broad range there, that you’ve got to speak to them,and use certain words that, you know, kind of, everybody understands then, don’t you?

KAREN: I just be meself and show them respect cos they show it to me. The people I look after are from Liverpool anyway, so they understand the way I speak and I understand the way they speak.

JODIE: Do you think there is a difference in generational, like kind of words that people say? For example your parents or the people that you look after, the elderly to the way that your son and your daughter speak or the way that your daughter speaks or the way that, you know (?) speaks?

KAREN: But I understand the difference, so I respect the way they speak and they respect the way I speak.

JODIE: Give me some examples though of, like, kind of…

LYNNIE: The old people say “Me smalls”, for their underwear, don’t they? “I’m going to go and rinse me smalls”, and it’s like… and they say “I’ve got to go and get the groceries”, instead of the shopping. So we would say shopping and they would say, “I’m going to do me… get me groceries.” What other ones do the old people say? What do you think, right, what do they call it, different things? They say TV instead of telly. I don’t know whether the first TV came up and that stuck. And they’ll say, erm, what do they say for the radio? The gram or…

KAREN: The gramophone.

LYNNIE: The gramophone? Even though it is a radio, or…

PETER: I think it is quite a difference between, like, me mum and me auntie Lynnie, and I think me and him are quite alike cos they’ve lived longer than us and they quite talk quite different.

LYNNIE: But me and your mum aren’t different are we?

PETER: No but me mum and me Auntie Lynnie talk like the same, and me and him talk like the same as well. It’s cos youse come out with different words than us.

JODIE: In what way? What, think… what do you know, kind of words that they come out with that are completely different to yourself? Or the way that, you know, your dad or your mum speak that’s completely different to you, or even your grandparents? Cos, you know… how old are you?

PETER: 13.

JODIE: 13. And you’re 19 and obviously there is a completely different age difference between Lynnie and Karen.

STEPHEN: There is, there is a difference between the age gaps and that in the way we speak because like Lynnie said before, there’s times where people our age are coming out with words and Lynnie hasn’t got a clue what they, what they are. ‘What’s that mean?’ It’s like people, like older people, the older generation, they haven’t got a clue what we are talking about half the time and we haven’t got a clue about the words that they come out with. There is a difference.

[Child speaks.]

KAREN: They’d say the parlour. The parlour or the lounge.

LYNNIE: Instead of the front room. Where we would say, “It’s in the front room or the back room”. They would say “the parlour”. It’s a parlour house or… And they call a hall a lobby.

KAREN: They say “Cheerio”.

LYNNIE: They say “Cheerio” instead of “Tarra”. They say the lobby, don’t they?

JODIE: What else do they say?

KAREN: The lounge.

LYNNIE: Old people? I’m trying to think. Me grandad’s been dead a couple of years.

KAREN: Cafeteria

LYNNIE: I’m trying to think what me grandad would say for words.

JODIE: What about clothes? Do they use any certain words for the way that they dress maybe, for like maybe the trousers that they wear or maybe…

KAREN: Well, they wouldn’t say pants, they’d say trousers. They wouldn’t say skirt, they’d say petticoat for underskirt.

PETER: They wouldn’t say bills(?) cos they’d say boxers.

KAREN: They’d say underwear or smalls.

PETER: I’d say, “What the hell were smalls?”