Published April 13, 2020

There was no image handy for this “Mad Men” post, so the photo above is meant to represent what it might have looked like if I had written this by hand. I’m having coffee, and there’s a spiral-bound notebook nearby, so that’s not terribly far off.

Anyway, there’s a scene from “Mad Men” (“Dark Shadows,” Season 5, episode 8) that delights me in how it illustrates the way language changes from generation to generation — especially means of expression that are considered groovy or cool or rad or whatever. Thirtysomething Pete Campbell is in an elevator with older men from the ad agency where they all work, including Bert Cooper, who is estimated to be close to 80 years old at the time of this conversation in 1966.

“My mother always said good news could wait,” an ebullient Pete says, “but I spent an hour and a half last night on the phone with my new best friend, Victor, at The New York Times.”

“Gonna get a paper route?” the ever-wisecracking Roger Sterling riffs, interrupting him.

“No, uh,” Pete says, trying to regain control of the conversation, “they’re doing some literary profile on hip agencies.”

“Hep,” Bert says matter-of-factly, sure that he is correcting Pete.

I loved how the series played that scene, not beating us over the head with it. Still do.

Bonus link: This 1965 letter to the editor in The New York Review of Books.

Image of a woman writing in a small notebook by Silatip/via Shutterstock.