Why internet slang is a riddle for bosses

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I can’t pinpoint the precise time it happened but my transformation from a great parent to an embarrassing one was reinforced the other day when I casually dropped “rizz” into a conversation at home. It was an experiment to see my son’s familiarity with internet slang. “Don’t say that,” he said. “You sound terrible.”

In terms of ego, it was a failure. But as a test of generational differences in the use of language, it was a success. I had discovered “rizz” in the fustiest way imaginable: I read in a newspaper that Oxford University Press had chosen it as the word of 2023. Short for charisma, rizz is defined as “style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner”. (I realise I am but a heartbeat from explaining “the Beatles are a popular beat combo”.)

I expect some ribbing at home about being out of touch about new words, but should I be prepared for it at work? Or should junior staff be expected to bend to linguistic norms set by their more, ahem, experienced workers? 

This touches on a broader issue of generational divisions played out in workplaces around the world. Laura Empson, professor of management at Bayes Business School, told me recently that senior executives in professional service firms said they were baffled by younger staff’s priorities. One managing partner of a Big Four firm was taken aback when a junior associate said she had never been prouder to work for the firm than when it announced they were getting rid of plastic straws in the staff canteen. When he was her age, he remembered, he was most proud of the firm when it won a major new audit.

As with so many of these issues, it is not necessarily a matter of one generation yielding to another, but coming to a tacit understanding. Stephen Carradini, assistant professor at Arizona State University, who looks…