I mean, ageism is absolutely real. As is cognitive decline (which is a legitimate disability). But also, there's a difference between "I'm trying and failing" and "I'm not trying". I give the former camp way way more leeway.

How about "it's truly unfair of you to expect me to try to keep up with the latest language changes into my 70s, and you're at least as capable of learning to understand generational language gaps as I am of keeping up with the latest shibboleths?"

I think you'll find I'm consistently willing to be forgiving of people across my comments here.

The only moderately strong objection I'm posing is to the characterization of language evolving as a shibboleth.

My grandad used to use a bunch of WW1 era slurs. Constantly. They were just language to him. I never got angry, I just let him know that if he used those slurs, people would have a perception that he was unwilling to believe in equality. He didn't realize and he tried, not because I said he was bad, but because he wanted to.

If you want to not keep up, that's fine! But language always changes. Whether it's yeet, sus, aura, brat, or disabled, the use of words is going to change.

So, if you choose not to change with it, you will eventually, accidentally, make someone who is keeping up feel hurt. That's not evil or bad. But at that moment, how you respond is something you can control -- talk to the person, share with them how it was unintentional, listen about how they felt. Explain to them how you feel about trying to keep up. Learn from one another.

Getting angry because inter generational language gaps exist is like getting angry because someone bumped you accidentally. Accidents are gonna happen, it's how we get together and give each other grace and listen that matters. Don't assume every bump of a passing stranger is an assault.

I think you might be reading my posts believing that I'm disagreeing with you, or that I'm insisting the new language is the only acceptable language. I'm really not.

> the characterization of language evolving as a shibboleth.

When I showed up at my most recent job I used "you guys" once and immediately regretted it. Things got awkward for a second and then someone in the group constructed a sentence that allowed them to use "folks" and place the emphasis.

I adapted, but if that's not a shibboleth I don't know what is.

What was the negative consequence you experienced from that interaction (genuine)? Did you follow up afterwards to understand why someone chose both the language they did?

They were made to feel awkward in that interaction for no reason, and possibly judged unfairly.

You gotta be pretty sensitive to consider momentary awkwardness a consequence when someone blamelessly and passively corrects you.

How do you reckon that they were judged here at all? This is a level of transgression roughly equivalent to mispronouncing someones name for the first time, I can't imagine anyone else even remembering this incident aside from OP and even they may only remember because the human brain reserves 10% of its space for reliving minor faux pas.

That isn't a shibboleth because it doesn't mark you as a member of their group. It sounds like a simple preference against gendered language (or maybe the default masculine, idk).

Using the word 'head' to refer to the bathroom would be a shibboleth.

Side note: I find that preference odd because I come from a context where 'you guys' is neutral, but ultimately view it as a deficiency in the english language.

What about "this is not worth trying"? One thing people in bubbles like this forget is that for them, learning is easy and effortless, but there's a giant cognitive underclass (often aged) who have limited mental resources that they are much better off dedicating to real problems like dealing with that mold problem they've allowed to fester in their bedroom. Imposing a new norm on your engineering team is a very different thing to imposing a new norm on say, all of McDonalds or an entire society.