boomerspeak

English

Alternative forms

Boomerspeak

Etymology

From boomer +‎ -speak.

Noun

boomerspeak (uncountable)

(informal) The style of language characteristic of baby boomers.
- 2003 May 1, Johanna Huden, “The Boomers’ Clampdown”, in New York Post‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-06-17:
  Take away my right to try something you see as "unhealthy" (which is just Boomerspeak for "indecent") – and you're taking away the texture, the essence, of life itself.
- 2009, Jim Finkelstein, Mary Gavin, Fuse: Making Sense of the New Cogenerational Workplace, Austin, T.X.: Greenleaf Book Group Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 152:
  Your grandparents probably told you not to burn your bridges. In Boomerspeak, that means not telling people off just for the sake of telling them off.
- 2019 December 20, Gretchen McCulloch, “’Boomerspeak’ Is Now Available for Your Parodying Pleasure”, in Wired‎^[2], San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-12-17:
  Many of these pieces had been around before, but as boomerspeak, they crystallized into a genre ripe for parody. Boomerspeak's canonical features include the dot dot dot, repeated commas, and the period at the end of a text message. It can also involve random mid-sentence capitalization, typing in all caps, double-spacing after a period, signing your name at the end of a text message, and confusion between the face with tears of joy emoji and the loudly crying emoji.
- 2021 November 4, Adam England, “How Spencer, The Crown and the internet turned Princess Diana into a Gen-Z queen”, in The Independent‎^[3], London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-05:
  Essentially, the posts mimic "boomerspeak", or the way that baby boomers – defined as those born between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s – are perceived to communicate online, combined with the often nonsensical and deliberately ironic memes so beloved of Gen-Z.

Usage notes

Prior to the late 2010s, the term was usually capitalized.