Agree to Disagree

Continuing the theme for the week on the actions of woman. Yesterday I had an ‘altercation’ with a journalist called Helen Razer on Twitter.

Basically I have a great dislike for the now commonly used words by mainly our teenagers i.e. ‘Bro’ and ‘Like’. I’m sure you have heard them used on many occasions and personally I find it annoying! Every second word out of my 19yo is ‘like’ – it has absolutely no context in the conversation what so ever. I was watching The Graham Norton Show recently when Will.i.am was a guest along with a more senior lady who was picking him up on his use of language. It was so very funny. Along with the rest of his conversation every second word was ‘like’ and she constantly picked him up on it. Can anyone tell me how the word ‘like’ has become a filler word? (Could be worse I suppose). We then get to the use of ‘Bro’. It is my understanding this is short for brother and could have its uses in context but according to Ms Razer it is common internet terminology. I still find its overuse annoying to say the least. Internet and text ‘shortening’ for words I can understand as the kids have come up with a totally new language that we have adopted and understand mostly (we had to otherwise we would have had no idea what they were going on about). LOL, WTF, NFI just to name a few. Mind you lol used to mean lots of love and I’m sure there are still people being caught out with that one. The use of ‘Bro’ in common speech is rampant.

I made comment about the use of Bro in one of Ms Razers tweets and from there the insults began to fly. I was told my use of the English Language was appalling, I should go back to my scrap booking etc and when I commented I wasn’t a journalist (in reference to the lack of language skills) she carried on then blocked me!

This Lady is an opinionated strong woman journalist and at 44years of age (according to Wiki) I would expect her attitude to be a little more mature. Making comment in whatever format should not bring about a tirade of insults especially when it is a public forum and she is a middle aged professional woman. 

Social Media formats are a wonderful way to keep in contact with your kids and their friends, your friends’ kids, friends and family. They also afford us the opportunity to voice our opinions and interact with others we don’t know all over the world while absorbing their discussions and opinions.

We all have our opinions and we have the right to voice them, this is called debate. I expect carryon from teenagers who generally think that anyone over 30 is an idiot; this is unfortunately a fact of life these days and even if we thought it when we were growing up we never voiced it.

I have opinions and I do not expect everyone to agree with me. I enjoy a challenging conversation as everyone has the right to their own thoughts on subjects and it is quite possible I will learn something from others input.

We have a basic right to free speech and providing it is not offensive we should accept the fact that others disagree with us. Is this not exactly what journalism is all about?