Let's Talk Inclusive Language: Elders vs the Elderly
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Elders vs. the Elderly
A few weeks ago, I ran an inclusive language workshop for a non-profit that specializes in a type of crisis prevention. Many people doing this work collaborate extensively with community members so they can set up new systems and prevention strategies. At the end of the workshop, I got this question:
You’ve advised us to avoid words like elderly and senior to describe older people. But what about elders? This is a word that people in the community I’m working with seem to like.
The short answer is this: if people like to be referred to as elders, then please use the word elders for them. That’s a foundational guideline for inclusive language—refer to people using the terminology that they prefer.
The longer answer is:
1. Why should we avoid terms like elderly and senior?
The key lies in the concept of “flavor.”
Each time we encounter a word, it “tastes” of its context. Who said it, how they said it, what they were talking about. And because older people in the US are a stigmatized category, the flavor of many words about older people has become negative. These words now taste like being incompetent, feeble, “over the hill,” “on their last leg.” You can see this in expressions like, “So easy, even your grandmother can do it.”
In fact, here in the US, people over 40 are a protected class when it comes to discrimination and harassment. That’s how frequently older people are the targets of bias.
Two of my principles of inclusive language are “show respect” and “draw people in.” By avoiding terms with a negative flavor, like elderly and senior, and using terms with a neutral flavor, like older, you’ll be following those principles.
Refer to people using the terminology they prefer
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2. If elderly is problematic, why is elders ok?
Because
a) the flavor is better, and
b) this is a term people positively identify with.
Even though it’s similar, the word elders avoids the stigma of elderly. Instead, it has a positive flavor. A flavor associated with respect and prestige. With accumulated knowledge and wisdom. And with being higher rank and having influence in a community.
So this term, just based on flavor, follows the principle of “show respect.”
But there’s another way using elders shows respect. And that is the respect that is demonstrated by using a name or term for someone that they prefer and identify with. This can show up as:
spelling and pronouncing someone’s name correctly,* even if it’s unfamiliar or difficult
referring to someone as a disabled person (if they prefer that to a person with a disability), even if you’ve learned that “people-first language” is the way to go,
using the pronouns that someone requests, even if it feels strange and uncomfortable to use they or them for a single person, or
calling someone an American Indian if that’s the term they prefer, even if you’d rather say Native American.
To sum up:
You can show respect and draw people in by avoiding terms for them that have a negative flavor.
You can show respect and draw people in by using the terms that they prefer for themselves, even if they don’t “taste” great to you.
* Pronunciation only applies to speakers of oral languages.
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