(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

Is there the slightest possibility in this world that the word "kidult", meaning basically teenager, existed before the beginning of the current millennium? Such that it might have been used in, say, an internal memo from the BBC in the mid-seventies?

I'm pretty sure that this is not the case. If it is, then either I've jumped universes or the aliens got me again. If not, it just means that a book which purports to be non-fiction is in some part invented from whole cloth, which is disappojnting but liveable-with.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Probably not mid-70s. The first usage the internet records was in the New York Times in 1985.

[aunty_marion]

1963, apparently.

[(Anonymous)]

The OED's earliest citation is from 1960:

1960 Britannica Bk. of Year (U.S.) 752/2 Kidult, a television adventure series that attracts both young people and adults.

I imagine it's the kind of word that got made up spontaneously in various times and places though, ever since 'kid' became a popular way of expressing 'child'.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Good gods. Okay, well, then at least the book is borne out.

If I weren't so Sane and Well-Adjusted tee em, though, I might seriously start to think that these horrible neologisms are being retroactively implanted like Asimov's jokes, and I'm the only one who (a) isn't getting them and (b) has noticed....

[tig-b.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not sane or well-adjusted so I'm sure someone out there is rewriting bits of my history ...

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Sorry! Accidental anon. It was me.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Oh, nice! Now I don't feel compelled to look it up and can get my dumb self to bed!!!

[hrrunka]

I can't remember when I first heard the word. It might have been as long ago as the very tail end of the last millennium, but I think it was more recent than that. I'm pretty sure it was on the radio (probably Radio 4 "Today") in a piece on new markets advertisers were targetting, and there was definitely scorn involved on one side or other of the interview table. Anybody's guess how long the advertising world had been using the term among themselves before they let it slip, though...

[hrrunka]

Oh, but it certainly didn't mean anything remotely like "teenager" in that case. It meant something like "adult who enjoys things only a child would be expected to enjoy".

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I had (as far as I recall) never seen or heard the term before this morning.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Nor me.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Nor me. Teenager or young adult always seemed to suffice.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Not before this evening actually.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Nor I.

[batyatoon]

*joins the "can't recall hearing it before" crowd*

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I first came across it with the 2006 film, but it's the sort of 'sociologist-speak' that might well turn up in a 70s BBC memo. Though.like you, I see no reason why it should replace the perfectly understandable 'teenager'.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Because "teenager" is not what it means. Or at least, it hasn't been what it meant in any of the contexts that I've encountered it.

"Teenage" is an age-range (strictly speaking 13 to 19, though with some leeway in common usage); "Kidulthood" is a state of mind, or of social development.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

The film was my first exposure to it as well.

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

Me too.