Talk:Adolescence

Isn't teenager a kind of informal term? isn't adolescent more appreciate as the title o encyclopedia article? -- Taku 00:51 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Does anyone have access to an Oxford English Dictionary and would care to look this word up? From what I undertand, it's a very recent coinage. -- Zoe

Amusingly, the OED entry for teenage refers one to teen², where it is defined as brushwood for fences and hedges. Nearby is the sadly obsolete word teenful, defined as "causing trouble or sorrow; vexatious, troublesome, painful, grievous, distressing." Teenage also doesn't make it into the OED Supplement, it may make it into the most recent edition, which I don't have. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary gives the date 1921 for the coinage. -- Someone else 03:18 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I want to rename the article to adolescence because

teenager seems a new, inaccurate informal word
no all other language has a word corresponding to teenager
teenager connotates eleven, twelve or twenty are not young generation. Mere age has nothing to do with important and social changes occuring during adolecence.

-- Taku 03:29 21 May 2003 (UTC)

If the two concepts are different, address the difference in the articles.

Teenager is a new word, but it is completely accurate (it's defined numerically!) and is not considered an informal usage.
Wikipedia is written in English.
teenager and young generation are not identical concepts. -- Someone else 03:36 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Yes, of course we shall (or already?) address the difference. And to be more precise what I meant is:

Teenager is relatively less formal than adolescence e.g. britannica uses adolescence instead of teenager
Not everyone all over the world uses a concept teenager while the concept of adolescence is widely accepted
Teenager coonotates 12-year-old is outside of it by its strict definition but body changes, for example, can occur in 12-year-old for sure.

-- Taku 16:27 21 May 2003 (UTC)

There should definitely be an article at teenager. The word and its meaning have inspired a million songs from "A teenager in love" by Dion & The Belmonts to "teenage dirtbag" by Wheatus. It also is the root of teenybopper, teen-dream, teen-angel. The word implies and embodies cultural aspects of teenage years that the word adolescent doesn't. Mintguy 21:36 21 May 2003 (UTC)

The discussion is not about if we should cover a word teenager, but about the naming of the article. Why not there should definitely be an article at adolescence? -- Taku 21:40 21 May 2003 (UTC)

This is English wikipedia and teenager is the more common form and has the advantage of its cultural context as well as the chronological one. Mintguy

I am not sure really teenager is more common form. If so, why does Britannica uses adolesence, for instance? Besides, I am not sure why the article named adolesence doesn't talk about cultural aspect of its stage such as drug abuse. And what do you mean by chronological context? Teeanger is rather new word. -- Taku 21:47 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I am telling you as a native English speaker that it is the more common form. You will never hear an English or American person saying - "Oh... I remember when I was an adolescent, those were the days". Mintguy 21:50 21 May 2003 (UTC)

And what can I say, we are talking about which one is the common form in community of encyclopedia. If you think this is a preference problem, we can certainly go to voting. -- Taku 21:54 21 May 2003 (UTC)

TEENAGER = 13 to 19 years old
ADOLECENT = undergoing transition to adulthood

They are not the same thing. Some teenagers are adolescent, some adolescents are teenagers. Some foods are plants, some plants are foods. Tannin

Then should we need a separate article? My point is that it seems fair enough that one article talks about both, as is the case now. -- Taku 22:02 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Actually I should have taken the trouble to read the article before I made my comments. Apologies for that. It seems to mostly describe years the physical tranformations of puberty, rather than the cultural aspects of teenage years. I think perhaps adolescence should redirect to puberty and teenager should mostly be about teen-culture. But then again adolescence is perhaps concerned with mental as well as physical maturation. I'll leave others to ponder this. Mintguy

(Via edit conflict) In a perfect world, yes, we would have seperate articles, just as we have seperate articles about food and plants. But there is not anywhere near enough information in the article as it stands (on either topic) to make more than a pair of tiny stubs. The sensible thing to do is retain the current single article with adolescence as a redirect to it until such a time as someone wants to come along and write an entry on adolescence. And I don't mean a horrible little stub, I mean the real thing which would, by the way, not be restricted to talking about adolescence in humans. In a nutshell, teenager is a Westerm culture or sociology topic with a narrow focus on Western societies of the last handful of decades, the US in particular. Adolescence, on the other hand, is clearly a topic that requires a cross-cultural and multi-species approach. ~~

Then what about the new name such as teenage and adolescence or other terms like youngster, youth or such. I know they are not the same as teenage. But for example, I suppose pubery can occur before 12 or after 19 depending on envrionments young people grow up. -- Taku 22:24 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Teenager is short, simple, and obvious. I don't think we need a title that is longer than the entry it stands at the head of. Tannin

It's so only if the teenager article only focuses on discussion of teenage culture. If not, the title seems rather misleading. I completely agree that we eventually need a separate article. But now adolescence seems fine because it contains mention about puberty and teenager with a subtopic since there is no much material now besides, it is rather limited in western culture, particularly in US. -- Taku 22:55 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should move all medical information regarding puberty into puberty with a link to it from teenager. I also think "teenager" and "adolescent" are too similar words to be placed in different articles. Any differences how the terms are used could be explained in the article. I don't really mind making adolescent the main article, but I've always thought "teenager" was the more common term being used in everyday language, though I am not a native speaker of English. However, if we should follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) that's what we should be looking for: the most common form used today.

Regarding "adolescence", I think this has more in common with "puberty" than "teenager", as it's not a term being used on someone undergoing changes into adulthood, but rather to the process of it, or am I wrong? If not, I see "puberty" as the more appropriate name of the two as the article will contain all the medical information as well, and even though there might not yet be enough material to make two full articles if we separate teenager and puberty I think it would still be worth doing it to make things more clear. As it is now, it feels a bit weird to be redirected to teenager when entering puberty, and to see all the medical information regarding puberty when reading about teenagers.

- Wintran 00:10 22 May 2003 (UTC)

The term "Adolescent" is used all the time in biology. You ever heard of a teenage mouse or bird? Tannin

The current OED lists the following as the complete definition for teenager:

One who is in his or her teens; loosely, an adolescent.

--Dante Alighieri 00:26 22 May 2003 (UTC)