Are You A “Silver Fox” Or A “Geezer?”

As we are getting older what we call our senior citizens is becoming hotly debated…

'Silver Tsunami' And Other Terms That Can Irk The Over-65 Set
NPR
By NPR Staff
May 19, 2014

About one-fifth of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by the year 2030. NPR's Ina Jaffe covers this population — and says it's often difficult to find the right words to describe it.

"I realized what a minefield this was after I'd been on the beat just a few months," she says. "I did . She's still up all night delivering babies, and the headline on our website — and reporters ... do not write the headlines ... described her as 'elderly.'

"Listeners were furious," Jaffe continues. "Maybe once upon a time, 'elderly' referred to a particular stage in life, but now people think ... it means you're ailing and you're frail."

Jaffe sometimes uses "older adults" or "older Americans," she says, if it's relevant to the story. "Sometimes I use the term 'senior' — though I've met some older people who don't like that, either. And 'senior citizen' really seems to annoy just about everyone now. ... There really aren't a lot of widely acceptable terms anymore."

I didn’t really thing about it and I think it would depend the context of the word. A bunch of seniors calling each other old geezers is one thing and a teenager calling someone a geezer is another thing.

But if you would like to take the survey they have on their website about the words you like and hate to describe senior citizens go to the link above and at the bottom of the page they have the survey.