…I say that this kind of stuff is total bullshit, on a par with Donald Trump’s pathetic comb-over. Old is old. A young twerp is a young twerp. An old fool is an old fool. The former will eventually become the latter. “Old” and “elderly” are not the operative words here.

From the New York Times blog section:

Now the center, along with Aging Services of California, has put together a stylebook to guide media professionals through the minefield of politically correct and politically incorrect ways of identifying and portraying the elderly.

Lesson one. “Elderly” is a word the two organizations would prefer we eliminate. Oops. We have used it here often.

But now we know better. In the glossary of the new stylebook, “Media Takes: On Aging,’’ the authors state their case against “elderly” as follows:

Use this word carefully and sparingly. The term is appropriate only in generic phrases that do not refer to specific individuals, such as concern for the elderly, a home for the elderly, etc. In other words, describing a person as elderly is bad form, although the generalized category “elderly” might not be offensive. (Suggested substitutions include “older adult” or simply “man’’ or “woman” with the age inserted, if relevant.)