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Full headline, thanks to Dreamwidth's perpetually subpar subject field length: "Gen Z workers are gently roasting their millennial colleagues for using the phrase 'out of pocket' because it has a different meaning for younger people"
I went into that article expecting it to be a "kids these days say the darndest things" type of situation, but no, it's not even that. Because I have never once heard the term "out of pocket" used in either of the ways it is described in that article, whether it's to mean "I'll be away for the day" as the "millennials and boomers" supposedly use it or to mean "acting chaotically or out of hand" as the "Gen Zers" supposedly use it.
The only times I personally have ever heard the term "out of pocket" used was in reference to someone having to pay for some kind of large bill (e.g. medical, home repair, car repair, etc.) "out of pocket," meaning to use their own money, because they had shitty/no insurance to cover it, or otherwise were going to pay for something "out of pocket," i.e. with their own money, as opposed to charging it or whatever. They do also mention this at the end of the above article, and I agree fully with that guy who said that both sides are using the term wrong. And most dictionaries agree.
The fact that the same series of words can come to mean entirely different things to different people, via shitty, fucked up slang usage or whatever, just goes to show how fucking stupid language is, in general.
I went into that article expecting it to be a "kids these days say the darndest things" type of situation, but no, it's not even that. Because I have never once heard the term "out of pocket" used in either of the ways it is described in that article, whether it's to mean "I'll be away for the day" as the "millennials and boomers" supposedly use it or to mean "acting chaotically or out of hand" as the "Gen Zers" supposedly use it.
The only times I personally have ever heard the term "out of pocket" used was in reference to someone having to pay for some kind of large bill (e.g. medical, home repair, car repair, etc.) "out of pocket," meaning to use their own money, because they had shitty/no insurance to cover it, or otherwise were going to pay for something "out of pocket," i.e. with their own money, as opposed to charging it or whatever. They do also mention this at the end of the above article, and I agree fully with that guy who said that both sides are using the term wrong. And most dictionaries agree.
The fact that the same series of words can come to mean entirely different things to different people, via shitty, fucked up slang usage or whatever, just goes to show how fucking stupid language is, in general.
