I’m currently working with a number of groups of Young People aged 15-19. The collective term for them is annoying me for some reason. They’re not children, they’re adults, but they’re a special sort of adults that need dealing with in a certain way. I’d like to say they’re “youth” but since the 1980s riots that term appears to be pejorative. (I remember watching the news at aged 10 thinking “youth” meant rioter – I was surprised to learn I was, or soon would be, a youth myself.)
I’m also annoyed because “young people aged 15-19″ is too long to comfortably fit into a tweet, but that’s beside the point.
The whole naming-of-groups-of-people thing reminded me of this exchange in Kyle Baker‘s masterful comic Why I Hate Saturn which I’d encourage you to check out. It’s presented out of context, obviously, but you’ll hopefully get the gist.
What’s wrong with “Young People”? There’s quite a few of them when you’re 66!
Of course, there’s always “Teenagers”, I hope that doesn’t have any negative connotations. We were all teenagers once.