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At 18, I never thought that someone who is 30 or 50 is old.
And I do not think that the 'elderly' almost always fall into a category described as "creaky, cranky, dotty and forgetful".
And many people who are still vital and alive in terms of vitality of life, do not wish to be called old or elderly, just as many people in their 60's and/or 70's do not wish to be called old and elderly when they clearly are still very vital nor lumped in with people in their mid to late 80's.
To me the word elderly means exactly the same as old, except that it's more specific. For example, an old sailor might mean an elderly sailor or an experienced sailor. An old sailor vs a newbie sailor. The word old is more ambiguous than elderly, because it can mean more different things. Elderly means an old person, but old doesn't have to mean a person at all. An old oak tree is old, not elderly. An old house is old, not elderly. Only people are elderly. So it's simply a word to use when you want to be more specific and be clear about referring to an old person as opposed to some other meaning of old.
And besides that, everyone knows anyone over 30 is elderly anyway. "I have lived some 30 years on this planet, and I have yet to hear a single word of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors."
The person quoted, who didn't seem to respect old people much when he wrote that; July 12 of next year will be his 200th birthday.
When I was in grade school someone who was 20 seemed old to me and my teachers were VERY old (in their 40's). So age is relative to the person perceiving it.
I play pickle ball in a group of people who range from 20-something to who-knows-what. This week someone told me he was born in 1938 (age 77) and that year shocked me (being born '54) because he is very fast, agile and athletic (yes bald). I just don't think about how old someone is unless their physical or mental condition makes it an issue. Actual age seems much less important than "effective" age after a certain point, maybe sometime after 50. Some people age badly due to poor health or poor life decisions and others age well probably due to good genes. I'm somewhere in the middle :-)
Even supposing that the normal human life span was 100 years, both examples are old in terms of their lifespan. It seems there is a lot of confusion, or is it fear, in this thread about what else old means. The first person is old and unhealthy, the second is old and very healthy. Still, old and old.
However, "elderly" does seem to me as well to be used almost exclusively as "old + infirm." So, presumably a sixty-five year old, who has probably lived at least 2/3s of their expected lifespan, and is also in a wheelchair full-time because of pervasive arthritis could be described as "elderly." Not likely to go over well with a lot of folks.
This was in response to me. First, I said nothing about the term "old."
Second, 65 isn't old, so a disabled person isn't elderly. Disability also doesn't equal infirm.
I'm 67. DH is 65. His mom is 92. Our nearest neighbor is 41.
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George HW Bush is elderly, period.
