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Carpal Tunnel
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Increasingly over the past few years I've been hearing and seeing the use of the noun, tween, to describe what I took to be a teeny-bopper when I was in high school. But the strange thing is, I ususally see it used in this sequence: pre-teens, tweens, and teens (or teenagers).
Now, when I was growing up you were a pre-teen, then a teeny-bopper (10-12), and then, at 13, you became a real teen, an official teenager. So I was wondering where tween fits in. This is from the AHD:
>tween
PRONUNCIATION: twn
NOUN: A child between middle childhood and adolesence, usually between 8 and 12 years old.
ETYMOLOGY: Blend of teen1 and between.<
So does this mean that today kids younger than 8 are considered pre-teens? And teeny-boppery has been pushed back to 8? I know kids are growing up a lot faster these days, but.
And when and why did tween start being used instead of teeny-bopper?
"Teeny-boppery's our newborn king, unh huh"
--Sonny & Cher, The Beat Goes On, 1966
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Carpal Tunnel
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I never thought of teeny-bopper to be anything other than a more or less disparaging term for mindless early teen musical preferences. I couldn't realte it to anything specific today, but generically anything that resulted in a "It's got a good beat and I'm not baffled by the lyrics; You can dance to it; I'll give it an 85" could qualify as teeny-bopper. Tween is whatever the age gap is before 13 and after little kid. I wouldn't be surprised of that were much lower than it was when geezers such as Juan and me were in that group
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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re:And teeny-boppery has been pushed back to 8? I know kids are growing up a lot faster these days, but.
its not just social pressure( and there is plenty of that, too, to make little girls look more grown up..)
for a number of reasons, girls are starting to show sign of sexual maturity as young as 8 and 9... their waist narrow, their breast enlarge,they start growing pubic hair.. age 10! (and children as young as 10 have gotten pregnant,-the child fathered by boys as young as 12)
why? one partial region is good nutrition,-
which are also causing dental problems.. our bodies evolved with constant food shortages, and learn to reabsorb calcium from dental roots, of "primary" or baby teeth --but calcium rich diets negate the bodies need to do this, and many kids have to get primary teeth pulled, since the root has never been re absorbed.. their bodies have enough calcium to build "healthy teeth and bones" with out stealing it from the primary tooth root!
sexual developement is tied to nutrition, and better nurished kids develop faster and younger than poorly nurished ones..for girls especially, it is tied to a ratio of fat to muscle..Kids need lots of calories to just grow... in times past, until a girl stopped growing (ie, 13 to 14, when she has reached 95% of adult height) she couldn't get the right fat/muscle ratio... ) the same is to some degree true of boys.. but boys tend to go through a major growth spurt with the onset of sexual maturity.. when they,for 6 months or so, turn into eating machines, and can out grow clothes in a week or two! -- it is incredible!
another reason that is speculated on is estrogen/like compounds in our foods and water supply are raising the levels of estrogen in children, and causing early maturity. (soy compounds are rich in these estrogen like chemicals, as are some growth hormones fed to cattle, (and dairy cows that are fed soy meal have high levels of estrogen like compounds in the milk-- which is then consumed by children)
who knows.. but tween, (and i've seen it for 4 or 5 years now,) covers these kids.
(these changes are also happening to boys,( ei, early secondary sexual developement),but less so.. but boys and girls have the dental problem.
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old hand
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old hand
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I kind of thought the marketing-types popularized the word tween, once they realized they needed a name for this age group which has gobs of money to spend, and can also influence purchases made by their parents.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Tween always struck me as pointing at that group of kids aged between 10 and thirteen, the 11 and 12 year olds. But you're right about early maturity, Helen, and it's more than just physical. I spent part of the afternoon yesterday trying not to laugh when an 11-year-old schoolfriend of my goddaughter decided to flirt with me. Batting eyelids, knowing looks, risque language, the works. This kid has only the hint of a bust and otherwise resembles a drain pipe, physically. But she's got the hype and the attitude all sorted for when her physical growth matches her attitude! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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she's got the hype and the attitude
But I might question her taste. [obligatory wink to indicate that I think that Pfranz is really quite the catch anyway{tongue planted firmly in cheek}-e]
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Did you see me claim that she also had good taste, Faldo? I was practice, nothing more ...
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addict
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addict
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I always thought teenybopper was synonymous with teenager. Here's MW:
Main Entry: teeny·bop·per
Pronunciation: -"bä-p&r
Function: noun
Etymology: teeny teenager + -bopper, perhaps from 4bop
Date: 1966
1 : a teenage girl
2 : a young teenager who is enthusiastically devoted to pop music and to current fads
Can't say I ever thought it referred specifically to a girl, or the younger teenage years, but it feels right to add those qualifiers.
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Carpal Tunnel
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As far as teenybopper (teeny-bopper, teeny bopper), nancyk and Faldo, me and my crowd always thought of teeny-boppers as the young pre-teen wannabes, usually girls 10-12 (but you could stretch that to include 13 and 14, and sometimes 8 and 9 the other way) who listened to "bubblegum" music like Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, The Ohio Express, and others of that ilk. "Yummy, yummy, yummy,
I've got love in my tummy..."  (Happy Earworm everyone!) 
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addict
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addict
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Pre-teen: self-explanatory really, <13
Tween: those 11s and 12s with the physical and/or emotional and/or financial attributes of a teen, usually f
Teeny-bopper: a teen before they become rebellious, almost always f and associated with really bad music
Teen: again self-explanatory, 13-19 inclusive
Adolescent: a teen who is too cool/mature/rebellious to be called (and treated as) a teen
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