"So Cool!"

"So Cool!"

I know I have mentioned this before in passing — I am fascinated with the forever freshness of the exclamatory word “cool.” As a grandparent, I can claim the credentials necessary to make this observation. “Cool” was cool in my adolescence, then my kids’, and now in my 13-year-old grandson’s.

Think about how remarkable that is in the light of radical changes in our verbal culture over three generations. For example, young romance doesn’t involve “making out” any more, as far as I know. Instead, these days, teens attracted to each other “hook up”, an apparently very loosely defined term that can imply anything from meeting for coffee to a consummated romance. Young people may be dating seriously, but more likely they are “seeing someone.” In my day, “seeing” involved only the eyes. Our thinking was that concrete. Times have sure changed in such ways.

If you think I am an old fogey about youth vernacular, meet my husband. We were riding in the car, half listening to the radio last weekend when an announcer used the term “out of the box.” My mate of many years jumped on that one and turned to me in a challenging tone (since everything being relative, in our house, I am the “cool” and au courant one), and asked, “What is the difference between ‘out of the box’ and ‘pushing the envelope’ and why do we need these two odd metaphors, anyway?”

I took a shot at making the distinction clear, demonstrating my eternal coolness. “They are not the same; so both are useful. ‘Out of the box’ implies creativity — a positive — or borrowing the current political laudatory label, implies ‘change’, a good thing! On the other hand, ‘pushing the envelope’ has a hint of iconoclasm — behavior not just new or changed, but rebellious, maybe even risky.”

Just in case you ever wondered what empty-nesters have to talk about after a lifetime together, this might provide some helpful hints (particularly if they were both English majors). Some of us defend the inclination to remain “forever cool” and others hold tight to what’s left of our youthful world view. For example, it’s easy to evoke a smile of recognition from my husband by telling him that our 7-year-old granddaughter wants to watch “The Sound of Music,” but her older brother is balking at changing the channel since he is watching a show about “The Strongest Man in the World.” Grandpa gets it because that is “guy cool” — another timeless wonder.

January 16, 2008