Alphabet of age
Aug 19, 2026, 08.29 AM IST
Gen Z is in the news in India and in several other places. The irresistible rise of Gen Z raises a number of points. And one of these is the increasing alphabetisation of age by figuring out how old or young one is by using letters instead of numbers.
Shakespeare enumerated seven stages of human life. In modern times, the Bard’s seven stages were reduced to four: infants, children (who were called kids when they were cute and bloody brats when they misbehaved), adults, and the elderly who became Unclejis and Auntyjis.
Then somewhere along the chronological line a new category came into being, the teenager. In India, it was the JS magazine that invented the teenager, referring to youngsters between 13 and 19, who formed a calendric bridge between childhood and adulthood.
Age was reckoned in arithmetical terms, in numbers. Then, all of a sudden millennial turn, arithmetical age was replaced by alphabetic age by the creation of a new age category, Gen X.
But before anyone could say what an Xcellent idea that was, Gen X gave way to Gen Y. And before anyone could ask Yfor? Gen Y was superseded by Gen Z, which is making not just waves but tsunamis all over the show.
The question might arise as to why there was no Gen W to precede Gen Y. How had an entire Gen gone missing? Was that what’s called a Generation Gap?
It’s not that there’s not just no Gen W, but there’s also no Gen V or any other letters that come before X. These are not mere Generation Gaps, but Generation Gorges. However, alphabetic age has a trick or two up its sleeve. Switching from the English to the Greek alphabet, there’s already a Gen Alpha in the making, followed by a Gen Beta and so on.
And when there are no more Greek Gens left, there’s always Cambodia’s Khmer alphabet to fall back on which, with 74 letters, is the world’s longest compendium of characters.
What happens to those who still compute their ages in numbers, like 30, 40, etc? Let’s just say that their days are, literally, numbered.
Shakespeare enumerated seven stages of human life. In modern times, the Bard’s seven stages were reduced to four: infants, children (who were called kids when they were cute and bloody brats when they misbehaved), adults, and the elderly who became Unclejis and Auntyjis.
Then somewhere along the chronological line a new category came into being, the teenager. In India, it was the JS magazine that invented the teenager, referring to youngsters between 13 and 19, who formed a calendric bridge between childhood and adulthood.
Age was reckoned in arithmetical terms, in numbers. Then, all of a sudden millennial turn, arithmetical age was replaced by alphabetic age by the creation of a new age category, Gen X.
But before anyone could say what an Xcellent idea that was, Gen X gave way to Gen Y. And before anyone could ask Yfor? Gen Y was superseded by Gen Z, which is making not just waves but tsunamis all over the show.
The question might arise as to why there was no Gen W to precede Gen Y. How had an entire Gen gone missing? Was that what’s called a Generation Gap?
It’s not that there’s not just no Gen W, but there’s also no Gen V or any other letters that come before X. These are not mere Generation Gaps, but Generation Gorges. However, alphabetic age has a trick or two up its sleeve. Switching from the English to the Greek alphabet, there’s already a Gen Alpha in the making, followed by a Gen Beta and so on.
And when there are no more Greek Gens left, there’s always Cambodia’s Khmer alphabet to fall back on which, with 74 letters, is the world’s longest compendium of characters.
What happens to those who still compute their ages in numbers, like 30, 40, etc? Let’s just say that their days are, literally, numbered.