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Senior moment?

Posted by Abe on March 03, 2004

In Reply to: Senior moment? posted by R. Berg on March 02, 2004

: : : : : I didn't find this in the archives. Do we know its origin or am I forgetting again...

: : : : : WC

: : : : I think its ancestor was "Kodak moment," from commercials.

: : : I spend a significant amount of time with "seniors" at the "senior center" (Senior Centers are, I gather, a fairly common community in the US. They are apparently managed locally but use a lot of grant money so there is a lot of US government regulation.) Anyway, "seniors" use the expression "senior moment" to describe a lapse of memory e.g. temporarly forgetting a name or face or a word. I have never seen the phrase in print but it is so commonplace that it should turn up in places other than my experience.

: : I thought "senior citizens" was a relatively new term. But I looked it up last night and it dates back to 1938. I didn't hear it until the 1960s when all kinds of government money poured into my area of W.Va. and senior citizen centers started opening up. FYI -- I would prefer to be called elderly or old. "Senior" sounds dippy.

: Well, I would prefer to be called young, if it weren't for my concern for accuracy.

At our senior center we frequently refer to close associates as "geezers". It would appear that "geezer" is rather like the word [word removed in order to comply with Google's Publisher Policy] and is not PC for most people at most times and places.

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