Fear and loathing of ....

Young people.

Yes, there is a term for it, and Michael Quinion discourses about it in this week's missive from World Wide Words. (If you don't get the e-mail or feed version, there's a week's delay in its being on the Web site.)

Ephebiphobia

As Quninion notes, the word derives from the classical Greek "ephebe," a man 18 to 20 who undertook military service.

I mention it only because of the epithets being hurled in some journalism circles these days toward the digital generation, often tinged with the backstory that somehow this generation (though when used in this context, it tends to take on an "everyone under 30" color) should be hanged for the troubles of traditional newsrooms. (Alas, trad news practices are, as noted here before, merely collateral damage of a shift that is affecting nearly all middlemen; it is not all a plot against journalists.)

I just thought it would be nice for those folks to have a word for it.