I’m really starting to think that Generation X — as a term — is making a comeback. Not only are “Anxious Xers” supposedly going to be the new “soccer mom’s” of the 2008 election, the term is popping up in the oddest places. Take for instance, a New York Times web item about a newly redesigned version of an abstract 1972 subway map. According to the Times,

With its 45- and 90-degree angles and one color per subway line, the 1972 subway map by Massimo Vignelli was divorced from the cityscape, devoid of street or neighborhood names. … Mr. Vignelli’s new map incorporates a Generation X lifetime of changes, particularly to Lower Manhattan …

Any number of adjectives could describe a “lifetime of changes,” and I have never seen the term “Generation X” used in this way. It’s about time this term lost its self-loathing connotation.