Ok. Is it one or the other? So, let’s start with the basics. This subject comes to mind because I’m old and I think about it a lot, but, more particularly because a government lackey of some sort issued a report which, among other things, accused Biden of being elderly and all that connotes. So I figured it would be worth my while to get to the bottom of this elderly thing.

Mr. Merriam and Webster perfunctorily defines elderly as “rather old”. While the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED as it’s commonly referred to and grandfather of all word definers, says this about that, “of, relating to, or characteristic of older people at an advanced stage of life.” I don’t know if the difference is a function of the English being more polite or just needing to take up space in their ponderous book. But it’s clear that “rather old” is pretty dismissive of any notion of elderly being not just old, but really old.

Elder, on the other hand (which was not used in the government report) starts out giving me a more positive and softer feel. Yes, maybe old, but with some side benefits. The definitions of which depend on whether one is referring to the noun or the adjective form. For my purposes I’ll stick with the noun which M/W gives as their third definition, “one having authority by virtue of age and experience.” The venerable OED is more succinct my opining, “a person superior in age, senior”. Of course we know that elder could also be a designation for an official of a church or an esteemed, usually older, wiseman of a native tribe.

What does all of this have to do with Biden, you say? Well certainly we can be certain that the author of the aforementioned government report knew what he was doing and selected his word with care. Or as one commentator commented, “this guy was either naive in the extreme, or extremely biased”. I think I know which.

There is ample evidence that “elderly” carries with it plenty of negative baggage. The Journal of Social Science in a recent study found that only 12% agree that we live in a society that respects the elderly or attaches much value to the experience that comes with age. And the Frontiers of Psychology opined in a recent piece that even the term “older adulthood” carries significant (negative) stigma.

If you’re looking for exact definitions of old age hood, things get a little fuzzy. The best I could find was the following categorization from the NIH:

65-75 Young Old

75-84 Middle Old

85 + Old Old

I don’t know if this makes me feel better or worse in that I’m in the middle of Middle Old but rapidly approaching Old Old. And BTW, what does it mean anyway. A couple of years ago the World Health Organization published an article on Aging and Health in which they posited, “there is no typical older person. Some 80 year olds have physical and mental capacities similar to many 30 year olds. Others experience significant decline in capacities at a much younger age.”

Let me get back to terminology for a minute. You don’t have to look hard to learn that there are words which have differing connotations when describing a person of a certain age. To wit: mature, senior, veteran, seasoned, elder, and venerable all seem to have an element of positivity while, elderly, aged (except in cheese and wine), geezer, old coot, old-timer, geriatric, oldster and many others carry a distinct negative connotation. Sometimes they are used inadvertently to describe an older person that one may even have respect for, but far more often as in the Biden case I referenced above, the author knew what he was doing…and did it with malice aforethought.

Digging deep into my brief encounter with Roman history I found my friend Pliny a noted author, historian and expert on botany and the natural world. He became known as Pliny the Elder, and was considered a man worthy of great respect, at least until many of his theories were proven to be bunkum. In any case, my point is would he have had that same respect if he had become known as Pliny the Elderly. I think not.

I personally can deal with almost anything you use to describe me except…please don’t ever say, “Hi ya doing there, young fella. Or how’s your day going young man.” I know I’m not young, you know I’m not young so let’s not try to pretend that referring to me thusly is a compliment. It is not.

So the question for all of us to ponder is “Is it Biden the Elder or Biden the Elderly”.