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(And yes, I’m writing this from a recliner, which already proves I’ve abandoned any remaining pretense of ambition.)
Look, I’m not saying young people are bad. Dirty socks are bad. I’m saying they move through the world like somebody gave them a fresh set of knees and a license to ignore every sentence that wasn’t written after they were born.
It’s not their fault, really. Somewhere along the way, the old shared language got outsourced to vibes.
For instance, just the other day I needed to let someone know I might miss a deadline. Naturally, instead of utilizing a crisp, modern status update, I elected to speak like a Dickensian orphan: “I may not be free, so put me in a spot so if I’m not there, I won’t leave you in the lurch.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
After a beat, they came back with, “Okay, like can you break that down for me? Like, what’s that even mean, like?”
Or words to that effect. I may be off a “like” or two, but that’s a whole other essay, and I’m already in deep enough water.
Now I’m an old guy, so I get it, some. Sixty years of living in the South and my affected Y’all-ese is soaked with things I learned from grandparents, uncles, aunts, parents—all those kinds of folks. I’ve let it soften my accent and blend my words to the point of near gibberish. And get this: I want to take that to a form of art. I’ve had to be understood my whole career. Now that I’m retired, it’s all up for grabs and Katie bar the door.
(Oops. Did it again.)
Still, I broke it down for them: “left in the lurch” means when you promise to be there and then you don’t show up.
Now I’m not saying that “lurch” was the best way to express my intent, but it was the way I’d chosen. I can’t help it. Even my college rhetoric professor noted my tendency toward hyperbole back in 1983. I still take it as a compliment. Plus, it’s a fun word to say.
In my day, if you didn’t want to leave someone hanging, you said things like lurch. I suppose I could’ve asked what the approved modern substitute was, but that would’ve meant surrendering the high ground, and I’m not ready to do that. I’ve got the white knuckles to prove it.
But here’s the truth: I love people under 40, despite their not having sense God gave a turnip.
Not because I’m bitter (I am), but because they’ll talk to me about “holding space,” “protecting my peace,” and “doing the work” as if these phrases came with a laminated membership card. They’ll say “circle back” and treat it like a pilgrimage instead of a plain request to talk later. Meanwhile I’m just trying to get through the week without Siri deciding “Call Ryan” means “Call the Ryan I haven’t spoken to since 1997 and put it on speaker in the produce section.”
Here’s the irony: “in the lurch” isn’t even mine. I got it from my parents, who got it from theirs. It’s borrowed language, passed mouth to ear down a line I didn’t start and can’t hold onto forever. That whole shared vocabulary—the one that used to just mean something, no explanation required—is quietly fading, replaced word by word with whatever the new reality speaks instead.
And here’s the bigger irony, the one I didn’t see coming: I’m the old guy now. The one railing at the young folks moving into the world like it’s rightfully theirs—because it is. This is the changing of the guard. I used to watch this happen with the old geezers ahead of me.
Now, if you’re under 40, none of this may land, and that’s fine. This next part isn’t for you.
To the rest of you—my age, my era, my people: maybe “in the lurch” is so archaic it doesn’t mean a thing anymore, even to us.
But if you know it too, let me know.
Don’t leave me in the lurch.
Photo Credit:
Photo by John Sekutowski on Unsplash