NPR Poll Reveals Despised and Acceptable Terms for Aging

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's Ina Jaffe covers aging. And on a recent program, we discussed a problem that she's encountered on her beat - what to call the people she covers. Now this led to us asking you all for some terms. We polled our listeners, but listen back to what she told us in that first conversation.

INA JAFFE, BYLINE: Maybe, once upon a time, elderly referred to a particular stage in life, but now people think of it as - means you're ailing and you're frail.

MONTAGNE: OK. So what do you call older people?

JAFFE: Older people or older adults. If it's relevant, sometimes I say older Americans. Sometimes I use the term senior, though I've met some older people who don't like that either.

MONTAGNE: So that was from our last conversation, and at the time, we asked you to weigh in and tell us the terms for aging that you love and that you hate. And Ina joins me now again to talk about the results of that poll. Good morning.

JAFFE: Good morning.

MONTAGNE: Let's start with the positives. What terms did listeners say they actually like?

JAFFE: Well, more than 2,700 people responded, and the winner and still champion was older adult, though you can't say there was any real enthusiasm for it among our poll takers. Just 43 percent of them said they liked it.

MONTAGNE: So it was an acceptable term, but was older adult the only term that people would sort of settle for?

JAFFE: Well, almost a third of the respondents liked elder. We received a lot of comments online from people who felt that the term was the most respectful. And about a third thought senior was fine, though if you put the word citizen after it, the favorable rating dropped to less than 12 percent.

MONTAGNE: So senior citizen - forget that. Let's - don't mention it. Which term had the dubious distinction of being the most despised?

JAFFE: Well, first, I should say that the category of dislikes had the most enthusiasm. There were about three and a half times more votes cast for terms that didn't like than for terms that they liked. And I can sum up the overall response by saying that they disliked pretty much everything.

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NPR Poll Reveals Despised and Acceptable Terms for Aging