Thursday, January 15, 2009

A question for my readers...

As I work diligently on writing my book, I find myself stumped on different words to call "senior citizens". Everything I come up with sounds so pejorative.

I want to indicate respect and humor and I can only use the word "senior" so many times without it going completely stale.

So what would you call a senior citizen? I know several of my readers are seniors, so please, please, please chime in here! (You can comment by clicking where it says "comments" right below this text.)

I did a quick google (don't you find it amusing when brands become verbs?) on euphemisms for older people. I found one humorous forum discussion where several names were tossed about, but the only one I really liked was "recycled teenagers". That made me laugh!

Another I term I found amusing was from a poster in England: "twirlies". This stems from when seniors try to board the buses with their senior pass before it's time. The drivers always say, "It's too early." Say that fast! Sounds like "twirly", doesn't it? I'm not sure that name would fly over here in the States, though.

Help me out, readers! How do you respectfully refer to senior citizens?

(As an added incentive, if you comment with a suggestion, I'll put you in the acknowledgements of my book!)

3 comments:

Mandajuice said...

Retired people, retirees. I'd probably also just switch it up by saying, "Those over sixty-five might appreciate..." or refer to them humorously as "the early dinner crowd."

Good luck!

Kidsncats said...

I like 'the early dinner crowd'...that's funny. I'll try to think of some others....

Anonymous said...

Hey,

I think I would just call then Retirees as one of you other readers said. Anything else could be offensive to some.

Will