On my 65th birthday, I wrote Help! I just turned into a senior citizen. But if I were writing it today, I would have used a different title, because it’s time to retire the “senior citizen” label. While the government might find it convenient to use a particular birthday as a transitional marker, there really isn’t one moment when you become old.

Copyright: boris15 / 123RF Stock Photo

So begins Lloyd Alter railing against the term “senior citizen.”  His article, It’s time to tell “senior citizens” to take a hike appeared online at Mother Nature Network.

Alter complains that words matter and there are ways of “reframing” the terminology about aging. He thinks the term is often associated with decline and deterioration and there are other ways of talking about aging that are not so negative. He provides quite a few examples of using better language for writers to use.

Like most of us, he doesn’t feel like a “senior” so believes it’s time to fix the language.

For additional points of view about the language of aging, read some of the other articles in this section Geezer Writing from the Web.

And for Geezer Bill’s more humorous take, click on What’s a Geezer.