The Volokh Conspiracy
[Eugene Volokh, October 6, 2006 at 1:36pm] Trackbacks
Aging:

What's this with homes or services "for the aging"? We're all aging, at precisely the same speed -- one year every year. (Or if you calculate aging as a fraction of your current age, the young are aging faster than the old.) The only ones who aren't aging are dead.

CM:
"Aged" is more appropriate. I prefer the Australian vernacular: "Old Timers."
10.6.2006 1:50pm
Christopher M (mail):
Merriam-Webster's online:
Main Entry: age
...
intransitive verb
1 : to become old
I believe you yourself answered this particular mystery here. So suck it up, Mr. Descriptivist Man!
10.6.2006 1:51pm
JRL:
Perhaps when you need such homes or services, your primary goal(function) is aging. You need their help, or, as you say, you will no longer be aging.
10.6.2006 1:58pm
Eugene Volokh (www):
JRL: Aha! That explains it perfectly.

Christopher M: No, really? "Aging" is entirely correct? It's possible for a word to mean something other than what a hyper-literalist reading of the word would suggest? Say it isn't so. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that "ice cream" (rather than "iced cream") is perfectly proper.
10.6.2006 2:03pm
Spartacus (www):
"[I]f you calculate aging as a fraction of your current age, the young are aging faster than the old," but while this impression is apparent when abserving the very young (i.e. chidren), perhaps after some point, the relation should be reversed, and aging should be calculated as a fraction of your current (estimated) remaining life span--and in this regard it is apparent that the old(er) are aging faster than the rest of us, in the sense of using up what they've got left.
10.6.2006 2:15pm
lucia (mail) (www):
There can be no homes for the aged. Everyone knows we age, and age, and age, reach our Golden Years, but never, ever grow old.
10.6.2006 2:15pm
Mike BUSL07 (mail) (www):
WHat was that Bush 41 quote? Aging could be slowed down if it had to go through Congress... ? Something to that effect.
10.6.2006 2:32pm
AppSocRes (mail):
Since time speeds up as you get older -- something to do with relativity ;-) -- the appropriate expression might be "the rapidly aging".
10.6.2006 2:56pm
Steve P. (mail):
I prefer the content-neutral 'almost dead'.
10.6.2006 3:03pm
PersonFromPorlock:
How about "paleoflatae?"
10.6.2006 3:23pm
bob montgomery:
The only ones who aren't aging are dead.

??

Yes they are.
10.6.2006 3:40pm
Waldensian (mail):
First of all, the dead are clearly still aging, much like wine. Except they certainly don't get any finer.

It's sort of like the old running Saturday Night Live joke about Francisco Franco still being dead. At one point they noted that he was now losing weight.

Clearly some people age faster than others. Such people are commonly said to have "really aged." I can actually feel my own aging acclerating relative to the aging of others, perhaps because I have gotten closer to a gravitational source. Or perhaps because I recently passed 40? In any event, it's happening faster.
10.6.2006 3:48pm
A.S.:
Should be "age-challenged".
10.6.2006 3:57pm
SMatthewStolte (mail):
The real answer is that people think it's less offensive than every other term for old. Senior Citizens, Older, etc. In fact, no one is fooled by the change in the name. No one actually means anything different by it. I think we would do better by insisting that one should be offended at being called old in precisely the same degree that one has disrespect for the elderly. Which is to say that taking offense, in this case, is necessarily giving it as well.
10.6.2006 4:04pm
Crunchy Frog:
Do you stop aging if you crash-land on the Lost island? It's already been shown to cure cancer and nerve paralysis.
10.6.2006 4:11pm
Enoch:
Like Yossarian, I plan to live forever or die in the attempt.
10.6.2006 5:22pm
Ron Hardin (mail) (www):
You aged one year and one second last year.

Extra second here http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/leapsecond.ram
10.6.2006 5:44pm
Dr. T (mail) (www):
Aging replaces elderly. Apparently some persons of advanced years find the adjective elderly insulting. I do not know why, since it simply describes someone who is past middle age.

This change in preferred adjectives reminds me of the replacement of negro with Afro-American and then with black.
10.6.2006 7:56pm
Lev:
I think "elderly" carries connotations of frailty.

"Aged" "old" "old timer" "geezer" may or may not.
10.7.2006 2:36am
Ron Hardin (mail) (www):
I'm not sure what to make of today's AP story Homeless Men Are Aging on the Streets

here

Apparently some verb was necessary for a non-story aimed at the soul-searching, inner struggle and eternal frustration market, which otherwise lacked action.
10.7.2006 7:38am
Jay Myers:

What's this with homes or services "for the aging"?


"The aging" is a euphemism for "the superfluous" but when you enter one of those places you pick up the true meaning real quick.
10.8.2006 11:48pm

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