Say It Straight

Today’s repeat offender is “Young at heart.” I stumbled across it in an Australian news story on YouTube about a 93-year-old and an 88-year-old who got married, then saw it again in an article that began, “Several of the young and young-at-heart students I’ve worked with ….”

A euphemism is “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt, when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.”

But what’s really embarrassing is how terms like this underhandedly bring attention to a harsh fact: Our culture considers the very mention of “old” unpleasant.

Photo by Diana on Pexels