"Never be the first to use a new descriptive term for older people nor the last to give up an old one." This is the advice given by Laura Morrison and colleagues in the discussion section of a fascinating new study published in JAGS this week . The authors looked at how "older people" are described in the English-language medical literature from 1950 to 2015. Specifically they looked at the use of the terms “geriatric,” “aged,” “old,” “older,” and “elderly” in Pubmed. Here is what they found: We liked using the term “aged” in publications before 1961, but "aged" quickly lost its appeal over the next decade “Geriatric” became more common from 1955 to 1976 but again fell out of favor over the last couple decades “Elderly” peaked around the time of George Michael's release of "Father Figure " (I'm not sure if there was a connection between the two) “Older" hit its low point in 1962 but boomed in use with the boomers, an