Who are you calling 'old dear'? Why language about elderly people matters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/29/old-dear-language-elderly-people

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Anyone who writes for a living ought to be especially conscious of the way words shape perception. Maybe that's why journalists seem so taken with one of the recommendations of the Delivering Dignity report into the care of elderly people – the call for medical staff to stop using terms such as "old dear" or "bedblocker" to refer to older patients.

When every news item on the report appears to be leading on that rather than all 47 other recommendations, maybe what we're seeing is professional self-scrutiny on the part of the press. Are you listening carefully? Can you hear the swishing of a thousand cardigans as subeditors swiftly update their style guides to keep crass, degrading generalisations out of published copy? Nor can I, actually. Historically, a big chunk of the press has been stubbornly resistant to the idea that there's any ethical quality to the words they choose.

One of the most depressing things about the "PC-gone-mad" hobbyhorsing is that the people who do it are often professionally literate – columnists who are paid thousands for their ability to choose the most pertinent words and put them in the right order – insisting that it really doesn't matter what words they use. If you object to being identified by race, sex or age, then you've declared yourself a member of the "PC police", brandishing your touchy feelings to oppress precious freedom of speech.

I've always thought that this was more about parts of the media hoarding power than it was a freedom issue. The message is clear: whoever you think you are, the anti-PCers reserve the right to define you by whatever characteristic they think you should be reduced to. That's why the Sun got Nadine Dorries and someone from the Campaign Against Political Correctness to comment on the report and declare it "nonsense". You know who the Sun didn't consult for its story? Any actual old people.

It's not like people in their 70s are hard to find: even tabloid hacks have grandparents, and probably ring them at least once a year. But once you've decided that "old dear" is fine, you've already depersonalised and infantilised the elderly. Why would you care what the old dears think? They're just a bunch of old dears.

This, of course, is exactly why the report authors want rid of such language. Old people are habitually seen as at best irrelevant and at worst burdensome. Everyone is guilty of discriminating against age in some small way, but when that attitude is present in the supposedly caring professions, it becomes practically murderous. Doctors and nurses who use such terms are slipping into a state of negligence about their patients, ignoring patients' needs and failing to attend to their health.

Ditching "old dear" won't fix every problem with the care of the elderly – that's why there are 48 recommendations and not just this one. But if everyone were to take responsibility for their words and try to speak humanely about others, it would be a huge move towards undermining the culture of belittling old people. My grandma – determined, prickly, generous and independent – isn't anyone's "old dear", and I wouldn't trust you to give her a paracetamol if I heard you talk about her like that.

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