Gen X to Gen Kvetch

Generation X - a 1970s punk band fronted by Billy Idol. It came to represent the generation following the technical baby boomers, those born from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s. I'm at the older end of Gen X but I know from my hours of management training that I identify squarely with them.




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kvetch (kvěch)
intr.v. kvetched, kvetch·ing, kvetch·es
To complain persistently and whiningly.
n.
A chronic, whining complainer.

A nagging complaint: "a rambling kvetch against the system" (Leonard Ross).


[Yiddish kvetshn, to squeeze, complain, from Middle High German quetzen, quetschen, to squeeze.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.


So how does Gen X turn into Gen Kvetch? The kvetch has always been there. Instead of accepting how things have always been done, Gen X decided to do it their own way. But with middle age comes more confidence and the chutzpuh to really tell it like it is. Somewhere on the path from shayna maidel to alter cocker lies Generation Kvetch.