I’m presently engaged in a personal struggle of sorts. Not that I’m here to air my dirty laundry publicly, like so many now do, as though it were the new method for displaying one’s honor. “Truth in transparency” or whatever the saying is, meant to justify putting all the details of one’s personal life out there for God and anyone with an internet connection to see and offer comment. Maybe this is the same thing, but anyway, back to my personal struggle.

I don’t know about you, but when I was young I had a certain vision for myself of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live, which of course changed somewhat as I matured. But I always knew I never wanted to be one of those grumpy old people we’ve all encountered: negative and pessimistic, nothing nice to say, facial expression perpetually screwed into a scowl of disapproval, bitterly disappointed with life, and the world, and the people in it. I doubt any of them ever intended to end up that way, but I made a conscious decision early on that wouldn’t be me, no matter how my life went. As it turns out, this goal hasn’t been particularly difficult for me—until recently.

Being in the word business, words and their meanings mean something to me. Mean a lot to me, actually. And lately I’ve noticed many new terms being bandied about that aren’t new at all, but are old words that someone has decided need new meanings—or at least a new twist on the original meaning. I would blame the millennials for this, but I’m not sure they have a solid enough grasp on basic vocabulary to take on such a feat. After all, unless it can be reduced to an acronym or inserted into a phrase that is then reduced to an acronym, it won’t fly with a millennial. Don’t worry, I’m not hurting anyone’s feelings in saying this, millennials don’t pick up newspapers—which would require the use of both hands, thus hindering cell phone scrolling so… you see where I’m going with this. And they don’t read opinion columns on newspaper websites, either. They seem to prefer sifting through multiple social media channels for others’ opinions…and snapshots of their lifestyles, videos of their dogs, and pictures of what they ate for breakfast. And it isn’t that I have anything against millennials; two of my own children are of that generation. There are many great things about millennials for which X-ers like myself, and Baby Boomers don’t give enough credit—but that’s a topic for a different column.

I guess what I’m getting at is I’ve finally reached the age where I’m uncomfortable with certain elements of the modern world, and this makes me uneasy. I still don’t want to succumb to tendencies of muttering about biblical destinations and hand baskets when no one even knows what a hand basket is any more. But messing around with the basis of intelligent communication, changing words and what they mean, for me, is quite unnerving.

For instance, when did “aesthetic” become a common term, used in its noun form, to supplant “style” or “look”?

I just love the aesthetic of her kitchen.

Please. That’s just annoying. But worse than that are the words that were once nouns (well, I guess they still are, sort of) but they’ve been turned into commonly used verbs, such as “ghost.”

Just so you know, this is no longer a specter or phantom, it’s a deliberate act carried out by someone who is avoiding another person, as in: I’ve been trying to reach him, but he’s ghosting me.

Ok. Fine. Whatevs! It just makes a person wonder where these obliterations come from.

Some of these new terms stem from celebrity influence like the Eminem song “Stan” that depicts the sad fate of an obsessive fan, named—you guessed it—Stan. So look out if someone tells you they Stan you, or that you are being Stanned, you will know you’re being idolized, obsessively adored, and quite possibly stalked.

Oh I know, this all seems relatively harmless. But how does one possibly keep up? I mean, what if, in 20 years or so, I can no longer effectively communicate because I don’t speak the lingo? That would certainly be the death of my writing. Even worse—and this is probably what bothers me the most—is the thought of me, projected into the not-so-distant future, when I’m with my family, and we’re talking and laughing like we do, until one of them has to stop in the middle of a funny story (pitying look glinting sympathetically in their eye) to explain to me what it is they are saying.

I suppose that’s the moment that really counts, not my intentions in all the years leading up to it. That’s the moment when I must choose whether to be indignant (facial expression screwed into a disapproving scowl), or whether to smile while gathering patience of my own, and graciously accept the fact that life, the world, the people in it and the language they use, are forever changing.

Lisa Hare is a former AP journalist and member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, as well as an author. To see more of Lisa’s work, or to contact her, visit: www. lisa-hare.com .