Jennifer Lindsay
*)is a Yogyakarta-and Sydney-based writer.

YOUNG people have always had their own way of talking, and their own fast-changing vocabulary. It is part of marking themselves off from the older generation. The faster their vocabulary changes, the less chance the oldies will catch up. For instance, in English, trendy talk of the 1920s jazz age so marked the young generation that special dictionaries were published. They contained words