The word "adolescence" is correct and usable in written English.
You would use it to refer to the period in someone's life between being a child and an adult, typically between the ages of 12-18. Example sentence: During his adolescence, John was an avid reader, which was the foundation of his success later in life.
This is why RENTA's use of "Aunties" in their campaign is significant, as it reconstructs the affectionate and symbolical relationship the aunt once had with her niece during her adolescence.
In adolescence, this national love affair with Italy conflicted rather eccentrically with a secret aspiration to temper and anglicise my innately Latin character.
And while the Marvelettes never reached No 1 again, they notched up two further US top 10 hits (Playboy and Don't Mess With Bill in 1962 and 66 respectively), though neither captured the trials of adolescence quite like the fervent Please Me Postman.
My daughter keeps pressing me to name my favourite bands in adolescence in the desperate hope that one day I will nominate someone credible.
Some people argue that the key to a person's life is to be found in childhood and adolescence.
During his extended Premier League adolescence it was Sturridge's commitment that was questioned.
But then, in moments of horrifying lucidity, I remember my own pre-internet teen years and I realise all too keenly that regardless of where you are, adolescence is, for the majority, about experimenting and taking risks.
Partly, it has come in response to a feeling, long gathering in staff rooms, that the labours of an entire childhood and adolescence should produce more than a list of letters, A to G, that show how good you are at remembering facts.
Until now, few if any authorities had considered the impact upon healthy sexual development of incarcerating 200-300 children together at a key stage of their adolescence.
It's also self-aware – on discussing how terrible adolescence actually is, a character ponders, "I don't know why they keep making movies and TV shows about it".
There is little in the way of traumatic childhood or difficult adolescence to rationalise this affinity for a character "desperate to be loved and always reaching for something she couldn't get", in Mulligan's own words.
