Wyn Drabble: Peek under linguistic tinsel

I'm sorry if you missed it but Monday, October 1, was International Day of Older Persons. I don't know what the older persons were supposed to do on the day - drape tinsel all over their Zimmer frames, decorate their liver spots, wear a paper party hat? - but I didn't spot any wild afternoon teas or the like in our neighbourhood.

International Day of Older Persons has inspired me to establish another commemorative day and today can be its first celebration. I am calling it International Euphemism Avoidance Day and you will be free to celebrate it whether you are of tinted skin, height-challenged, vision-impaired, hair-deficient, generously proportioned or even age-disadvantaged.

Puh-lease! Just what are "older persons" and why must we skirt around the issue with such vacuous verbal caution? The use of the comparative just muddies the whole issue with its (unsuccessful) attempt at giving the condition a faintly positive connotation.

Let's make up another example to illustrate the weakness of the comparative: We could come right out and have International Poverty Day or we could muddy the issue and call it International Day of the Poorer Person.

According to my limited research (I took a book from the shelf beside me), the first euphemism for old people came about in the 1930s. It was senior citizens and it is still used today, often in its shorter form, seniors.

It survives in another popular form too; instead of admitting to forgetting something, people prefer to say they are having a senior moment.

Our own Government has a Minister for Senior Citizens. They decided to run with that name because it was shorter and rolled from the tongue more trippingly than the other contender, the Minister for People Who Are No Longer Spring Chickens.

Our Government also boasts the New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy about which I know little but my initial gut feeling is that it tries to put a positive spin on dementia and drool.

There's nothing funny, of course, about many of the attributes of old age but they still don't warrant the circumlocutory nonsense of sunset years, twilight homes and rest homes for the soon-to-expire or the soon-to-be-no-longer-with-us. There are even sunset and twilight industries.

Yes, it is a sensitive area but surely we can stop calling a spade a seasoned veteran who will soon be summoned to play the harp in a better place.

Even the name Age Concern concerns me as it conjures up visions of people with frowns on their forehead, worrying about the elderly.

The phrase does little to sweeten the fact that its clients will soon croak, call it a day, draw the curtain, hang up their hat, settle their account, be written out of the script, go for a Burton, turn up their toes, go to meet their maker, go the way of all flesh, push up the daisies or shuffle off this mortal coil.

Then family members will have to make ... well ... arrangements ... you know ... for a ... send-off ... you know ... to a remembrance park to rest.

But enough of the window dressing already. Now, here is some factual background information for you and here I will be calling a spade a spade.

New Zealand has 611,000 people aged 65 or more (I am unwilling to become involved in the debate about when one is officially old). Around 20 per cent of people continue to work after the age of 65 and many more do volunteer work. Many of them are old. Some are extremely old.

See, I have just illustrated that you can do it without the linguistic tinsel. And, while we're on the subject, I'm quite happy if you refer to me as overweight too - but I might be offended if you call me circumferentially-challenged, generously-proportioned, cellulite-friendly, love-handled, in possession of a bay window or fattractive.

Keeping all of this in mind, let's finish with a fun question:

What should you call a short, fat, bald, myopic, 85-year-old male of European descent?

Answer: A spade.