Boris Johnson using the term "kids"

Nit-picking when there are far bigger issues to worry about!
I'm with lemon and lucca on this one!
That must be a first!
We can usually rely on precious GN posters to fret about trivialities!

Phoenix forgive me but I’m pretty sure that’s the second time you’ve mentioned your bottom on gransnet......

And "yob" comes from "boy" backwards!

Evoha16. It would be very strange if they had!.

I have friends who hate children being referred to as kids. I don't like it but doesn't bother me much.

‘Kids’ grates and lacks respect. Alternatives to ‘children’ include, in this case, ‘pupils’ or ‘boys and girls’. He’s just trying to indicate the he is in touch with the people, yeah, right!

Perfectly acceptable.

Elrel but if he called the older kids at school "pupils" they would be deeply offended because they are "students". And the terms "boys" and "girls" shouldn't be applied because they're not gender neutral. He simply can't win.

Surely by making a fuss about such a trivial matter it’s diverting attention from the right mess he’s making of important things?

Exactly. Bumbling idiot that he is.

Maybe it's because the content of his speeches is so poor that all that is left to do is to pick on his delivery and his appearance. Compare him with the polished performances Macron, but then the latter probably rehearses everything with Brigitte, his drama teacher, first.

Blair used to do it as well - it grated then and it grates now. It’s slang and it’s sloppy and it’s inappropriate in formal situations. I bet he’d never say

‘ The Cambridge’s kids have not gone back to school’

You can moan about his use of kids and his hair AND about the fact that he’s a complete disaster

PS I didn’t like his use of the word spaffing either

What a nasty unnecessary little comment Elianne. The age gap with the two couples is just about the same but I rather think tbe marital fidelity is rather better with Macron. ( mind your with Johnson that’s a non existent bar):

Just wish he could get a sentence out without bumbling! I find for a politician he's very inarticulate. However, I don't mind him saying kids. Still think if we'd locked down earlier and stricter we wouldn't have lost in excess of 42,000 people.

*suziewoozie" it just shows how words can be misconstrued if you think I was being nasty. The age gap never even crossed my mind, I was talking about the delivery of speeches and performance in terms of Macron having the advantage of drama teaching. Nothing to do with fidelity either.

For goodness sake! As long as they are loved and cared for surely that’s all that matters. ?

I have always disliked this word - I do not know why as I do realise is derivation.

I am not too keen on anything BJ says!

No one has suggested that it isn't trivial in the great scale of things, but it is undeniably sloppy. In serious speech it gives the impression that no great attention has been paid to the matter, which in the case of the PM may well be true.

I just can't listen to him, he annoys me to the point I turn off the TV so now I don't even bother to turn it on. Another thing his hair, why oh why in this day with all the products available he can't do something with his hair. Answer, he is lazy.

Well I find this fuss really trivial. It’s like when I was teaching and we all received an email directing us Not to talk about “pupils”, we had to say “students”.

Like it or not, it's in common usage. Lots of people use this word for children. I'm not keen on it but it's nothing to get worked up about.

Oh well kill me now as I too use the term kids rather than children. My kids are 32 and 40 so hardly children and to me it's a term of endearment.

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I think you’ll find the unkempt hair “style” is very much contrived. He bothers a lot to get it just like that. I’m unsure what the aim is. Perhaps he thinks it makes him look lovable? ?
As for kids the dislike for that word crops up perennially on pedants’ corner, along with lots of other “same olds” such as starting sentences with “so” or “and”. People purport to cringe at so many things. Kids comes from Kinder. It’s been around a long time. Nobody confuses its use with baby goats.
Far worse things to complain about. And I don’t normally stick up for Boris.

My son and his wife are in their 20s and I call them “you kids”. They don’t mind. Probably accept I’m a bit out of touch but they don’t mind.