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Not since 69 has a number caused this much disruption.
“6-7,” pronounced “six-seveeeeen,” is haunting school halls across the country (including South Park Elementary), making it the Gen Alpha nonsense phrase of the moment. Kids are shouting it in classrooms when a teacher turns to page 67, when lunchtime is 6 to 7 minutes away or for no reason at all. It’s become so ubiquitous that Dictionary.com named it the word of the year.
“It’s like a plague — a virus that has taken over these kids’ minds,” said Gabe Dannenbring, a seventh-grade science teacher in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “You can’t say any iteration of the numbers 6 or 7 without having at least 15 kids yell, ‘6-7!’”
It’s a joke without a punchline (or a setup, for that matter). 6-7 means nothing, but using it can make a student feel like a member of a bigger, cooler group of their peers.
“It becomes a language game to them that, it would seem, only folks in their group know how to play,” said Gail Fairhurst, a University of Cincinnati professor who teaches leadership communication (and Gen Alpha speak).
Skibidi toilets and rizzes come and go. 6-7 is likely destined for the slang graveyard soon, now that adults are talking about it so much. But there’s something almost profound about its infinite interpretations, its refusal to be defined.
“I think that’s part of what upsets people about it, and I think that’s part of what people like about it,” said Taylor Jones, a linguist and social scientist. httpskra40at
