THIRTYSOMETHING

noun and adjective (Lifestyle and Leisure) noun: An indeterminate age between thirty and forty; a person of this age, especially a boomer who reached this age during the eighties. adjective: Of or belonging to such a person or the group as a whole; characteristic of baby boomers and their lifestyle in the eighties. Etymology: The form -something could always be added to a number such as twenty, thirty, forty, etc. to indicate uncertainty as to the precise age of a person (or indeed the precise number of something else), so the word thirtysomething had existed for some time, used when the context demanded; what brought it into public focus and led to its being used widely to refer to the boomer generation was a popular US television series called Thirtysomething (also shown outside the US), which from 1987 recounted the ups and downs and family lives of a group of boomers who had reached their thirties in the eighties. History and Usage: The success of the television series Thirtysomething can in part be attributed to the fact that a large proportion of its viewing public was able to identify directly with the characters; it also came at a time when the trend analysts and marketers in the US had been focusing their efforts on meeting the demands of this very group. The word very quickly came to be used as a noun and adjective not directly alluding to the programme, but to the whole socio-economic grouping; within months this also gave rise to an explosion of other uses of -something to refer to other groups belonging to a different generation (twentysomething, fortysomething, etc.: see the examples below). The fashion for such formations continued into the early nineties. At least 83 of the 121 films that leading distributors are opening in the New York area promise to be intellectually respectable enough for bright fortysomethings. Newsday 11 Sept. 1988, section 2, p. 3 This comic strip collection chronicles the demands of a 'thirtysomething' career woman. Publishers Weekly 11 Aug. 1989, p. 373 Are you ready for seventysomething rock? John Lee Hooker (b. Clarkesdale, Mississippi in 1917) is the most thoroughly unreconstructed Delta bluesman still practising. Q Dec. 1989, p. 127 Rosen was a lawyer from the 'Thirtysomething' crowd:...the kind of early 1970s rabble-rouser embarrassed to tell his Swarthmore class reunion he now made millions sniffing out tax loopholes for corporate takeovers. Bryan Burrough & John Helyar Barbarians at the Gate (1990), p. 406