Letters April 27, 1998 Issue

YOUR LETTERS

"Knowing how someone else had prayed really helped me."

with contributions from Don L. Griffith, Maylis Rath, Emily Bennett

In my early college years and during my first decade of teaching, the term kid was frowned upon. "A kid is a goat" would be the retort one would get when the terms child and kid were interchanged. As an educator for the past thirty-four years, however, I have observed the word kid move from rank disfavor to a perfectly acceptable term in the 90s.

The meanings, inferences, connotations, and even pronunciations of words change with time. The word silly was a compliment in Shakespeare's time, and all of us over forty can recall the day when gay referred exclusively to a state of mind. In short, let's all loosen up and let kids have its day in our unique and ever-changing English language.

Don L. Griffith
Decatur, Georgia

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