Language Use That Really Annoys Me #3 - Teenage Girls.

I hate teenage girls. Not enough of them die in wars. Think of all the ickle fluffy bunnies we could save from agonising but necessary medical tests if we used teenage girls instead. They'd get free mascara and most of them like doing weird things to their hair and skin, so it's not exactly a one-sided transaction...

But have you ever been on a train with them? It's Dante's Inferno if he included cheap perfume, desperate attempts to look 'adult' despite still being at school and too much make up. God, they're irritating. So irritating that all of a sudden drinking bleach or being eaten alive by a swarm of ravenous sewer rats seems preferable.

It's how they speak that's really annoying, the excruciating squealing tone that comes from watching too much Hollyoakes or Neighbours or American Teen shlockfests. In this shrill pidgin, one does not go to 'university'. No, one goes to 'YOOOOO-NEEEEEE'. Every exclaimation is 'OH MY GOOOOOOOoooooooooDDDD!'* and their laughter is akin to a really cruel Greek chorus cackling as a cute puppy gets run over by a Deus et Machina Land Rover.

But it's how every f**king sentence has to be a question. 'Hi Emm-AHHHH?' 'Hiya, Denise?' 'We're on a train???' 'So are we?' 'We'll meet at the station?' 'That's a great idea?' 'Love ya, babe?' 'Love you, too, gor-juss?' It's like a gaggle of South Bank intellectuals arguing over whether they actually exist and whether the Jonas Bros. are, like, the cutest boys evvv-aaaaaar.

Everybody thinks that one's teenage years are about rebellion. But as these not-quite-women show, it's really about conformity. Not the beaten down, I've-learned-to-love-the-inland-revenue, oh-shit-I'm-married-and-got-three-kids type of conformity we normally associate with 'the squares', who lost their battle with the Beast long before they even knew they were fighting it.

No, teenage conformity is far worse - they choose to obey, to follow, to think and dress and speak exactly like the rest of whatever grubby little tribe they choose to belong to. 'Teenage Rebellion', that old cliche and crutch for one's own midlife crisis, is a misdiagnosis. The rejection of parental authority is not in favour of some Sodom 'n Gomorrah anarchy, but rather, a far more strident, focussed and vicious obedience to a much more powerful, competent authority. Those girls don't give two farts about what you think about them - because they BELONG, and that means infinitely more than any personal consideration or individual nuance.

And if you don't obey the hormonal Clone-God? You will be singled out. You will be despised. You will be tainted, and You Will Pay for not marching in tune. There is a reason why the Red Guards were mostly students, the Baader Meinhof gang was young and beautiful and why most suicide bombers are young men with their best years still ahead: Only the young can love their masters as much as they do, and HATE their foes with such passion. Piggy always gets lynched by good little tribals, and there is a reason why all those charming chavs and thugs**, of the kind that congregates in large numbers and frighten grown men, all wear the same cut and style of tracksuits and hooded tops and affect the same swagger and menacing, insolent air. They're in uniform and they're on parade.

And in the end, it all comes down to language. The language you use shapes your mind and your actions. It defines you and the company you keep. By definition, any limit you impose on your language is a limit you impose on your own mind, your own decisions and your ability to choose right from wrong. And that's what's really wrong with ghastly teenage girls. They WANT to be limited and hold in contempt any attempt to improve yourself or have your own thoughts.

But there's going to be a day when I get up, walk across the carriage, stand on the table they're sitting around, whip out my homemade morning star and, while waving it about, sing: "'Girl, You'll Be A Woman, SOOOOooo-ooon...', but only when you can string a sentence together, you foul pubescent wreckers of good syntax." And then, and only then, I will threaten them with certain death if they ever raise the pitch of their voices at the end of a sentence that isn't a question. And it will be a good day. If not for my sanity, or vapid girls in scrunchees and tracksuit bottoms with 'WHORE' printed over the buttocks, then at least for language.



* In this case, Sharnice, the infernal deity of backstabbing, hairdressers, eating disorders and crap taste in music. Alignment: Neutral Evil. Favoured Weapon: Fake Gucci stiletto heel, outside a pub in Central Cardiff on a Saturday night...

** At least teenage girls have an internal life, albeit a really stunted one. Teenage boys, as a rule, haven't quite got past the grunting and saying 'c**t' a lot phase. They seldom develop further, either.