Yuen: They said ‘6-7’ — and somehow, so did I

The Gen Alpha term “6-7″ likely isn’t long for this world, given how widely grown-ups are adopting it.

An online dictionary hailed 67 as its 2025 Word of the Year. In-on-the-joke parents and teachers dressed up as 6 and 7 for Halloween. And some of us in middle age and beyond are starting to celebrate the serendipity of these consecutive numbers in the normal course of our day.

Like when my editor said this column could be published on Nov. 6 or 7.

SIX SEVEN!

Or when I realized the score of my pickleball game just as I was about to serve.

SIX SEVEN!

Or when one glimpses the high temps in the forecast on an unseasonably warm autumn day.

Wordsmiths waxed poetic about 6-7 when they announced it as Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year. “It’s part inside joke, part social signal and part performance,” said Steve Johnson, director of lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group at IXL Learning. “When people say it, they’re not just repeating a meme; they’re shouting a feeling."

Is it stupid? Of course! But the beauty of this phrase is that it means, at least in middle-school parlance, nothing at all. Believe me, I’ve tried to discern the rules for its usage. As my 12-year-old son says, irked by my cluelessness: It’s just a meme, Mom. (And it’s hardly a new trend; my boys have been shouting “6-7!” since February. But it seems to have more staying power than other nonsensical tween terms, and it is uttered with far more ebullience.)

What used to annoy us, we now accept. And I’d argue that for most parents, 6-7 is preferable to hearing about 69. It’s an endearing, nonsexual joke that brings us a little joy and togetherness, especially when you compare it to other viral catchphrases like “skibidi toilet.” When you find sixes and sevens in the natural world — which we do all the darn time — one can’t help but join in.

Claire Halpert, the mom of two children ages 8 and 5, is hardly peeved when her kids say it.

“If you hear it all day long, your brain just wants to do it,” said Halpert, a professor of linguistics at the University of Minnesota. “It’s pure playfulness. To me, that’s part of the fun of it. It feels special, even to adults.”

But some teachers who’ve had enough outbursts in the classroom are banning the phrase. Others have embraced it. Chris Clifford, a fifth-grade teacher in Lakeville, asked his students to write a 67-word essay on what 6-7 means to them. Another teacher I know uses it in her third-grade class to get the attention of her students. She’ll count “three, four, five,” and the class responds, “Six seven!”

Halpert finds this all delightful. But if you’re a parent who has reached your limits for tolerating the phrase, she reminds us that kids developing slang means they’re finding their autonomy, just as we and every previous generation did.

“They’re able to use language to find their place in society,” she said.

Though she did acknowledge: “If you’re a teacher and it’s happening to you all day, I have the utmost sympathy.”

The phrase appears to have first surfaced last year in a song by rapper Skrilla called “Doot Doot (6 7).” Linguist Taylor Jones has speculated Skrilla was alluding to the 10-67 police code, which is used to report a death.

The song also became a soundtrack for video clips of NBA player LaMelo Ball, who is, you guessed it, 6-foot-7. And a kid now known as “Mason 6-7″ skyrocketed the phrase into the zeitgeist when he and a friend were filmed wildly shouting it at a basketball game.

Whatever the original meaning of the phrase was is largely irrelevant to the kids who squeal it today. To say 6-7 today means you are a kid or are kid-adjacent. It means you’re part of the “in” group.

“What they like the most is that we don’t understand it,” said Jenny Spohn of Lakeville, the mom of three boys. “I don’t think they do, either.”

Spohn’s 10-year-old, Wilson, was one of Clifford’s students who wrote about the meaning of 6-7. He reckons he says it “because it’s funny” about 40 times a day.

Wilson had done his research on how the phrase evolved from “Doot Doot” and Taylen Kinney to the ubiquitous verbal tic it’s morphed into today. Before our interview came to a close, I ended with a standard question for journalists.

Wilson did not skip a beat.

“SIX SEVEN!”