The Two Incredibly Common Words Gen Z Can’t Seem To Use Correctly
Do you know the difference between "when" and "whenever?"
Ground Picture | Shutterstock It seems that those born between 1997 and 2012 need to work on their vocabulary. TikTokers have pointed out that members of Gen Z seem to mispronounce or misuse a couple of very common words, and it's causing a bit of confusion.
There are two incredibly common words that Gen Z can't seem to use correctly.
Content creator and self-described "elder millennial" Brett Vanderbrook asked in a recent TikTok why so many Gen Z men are suddenly mispronouncing the word "women."
“Somebody else pointed this out to me recently, and now I hear it everywhere,” he insisted. “It’s specifically young men. They’re the ones who I’ve heard mispronouncing it.”
“Because this word is pronounced WI-muhn,” Vanderbrook said, phonetically sounding out the word. “Always has been. But for some reason, they’re saying WUH-mehn, which is exactly how you pronounce the singular version of the word.”
Vanderbrook conceded that the spelling of the word may be causing some of the confusion. “Now, I know there’s an ‘o’ in this word,” he stated, “but English is a weird language that takes cues from a lot of other languages and cultures and it can be sometimes etymologically muddled why we pronounce words a certain way.”
However, his theory about Gen Z men’s mispronunciation of the word had nothing to do with the English language's many quirks. “I also know that language evolves over time and rules are meant to be broken, yada, yada, yada,” he said. “But there’s something about this one that just feels different. It feels wrong. It feels off.”
According to Vanderbrook, “It always seems like the guys who are using it are using it in a context that just feels tinged with misogyny, if you understand what I’m saying.”
Gen Zers also tend to misuse the word 'whenever.'
Two of the top comments on Vanderbrook’s video were related to Gen Z’s apparent incorrect use of another common word. "They use ‘whenever’ in place of ‘when.’ It’s bizarre,” one user wrote in a comment that received over 14,000 likes.
Content creator @hotandhumblejake previously made a video pointing out the same error.
“This is gonna be very niche,” the 24-year-old began his video, “but there is genuinely nothing that enrages me more than when someone uses the word ‘whenever’ when they actually were intended to use the word ‘when.’”
According to the Blue Book of Grammar, "If an event is unique or its date or time is known, use 'when.'" Conversely, "'Whenever' is best used for repeated events or events whose date or time is uncertain."
Jake shared an example of the way Gen Zers frequently misuse the word. “They say something like, ‘Whenever I was in high school, I loved eating Cheerios in the morning,’” he explained. “That's not a whenever. A whenever describes hypothetical time you were in high school … ‘Whenever you were in high school’ implies that high school might not have happened yet or might happen in the future.”
"This is a pretty much exclusive to Gen Z phenomenon," he added. "I never hear older people say it."
The reason for Gen Z's misuse of these words is not entirely clear.
UCLA professor of linguistics Jessica Rett wrote an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times regarding how and why Gen Z misuses some words. Referring to her Gen Z undergrads, Rett said, “While we can understand each other pretty well, they collectively speak a variety of English that is different from mine.”
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Rett pointed to technology, specifically the internet and social media, as being responsible for this. She said that one can now be exposed to a variety of dialects and linguistic patterns that previously would have been more exclusive.
In the comments of Vanderbrook's video, some users theorized it had to do with the ongoing literacy crisis; however, the reason is ultimately unclear.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.