What American magazine has the largest paid circulation? Which one has twice as many subscribers as the runner-up?

The answer to both questions is, of course, AARP the Magazine, weighing in at 22 million in paid subscriptions. The closest to it, Reader’s Digest, has just 11 million. The front runner has beaten out some 12 thousand other magazines that are published in the United States.

The millions of readers the Magazine attracts are apparently not deterred by its pretentious title, in which the letters AARP no longer stand for the American Association of Retired Persons.

The editor of this periodical, Steven Slon, impresses me as a remarkably nice guy in a business usually too high-powered for nice. But he does have strong views about language acceptable in his magazine, some of which he presented to an audience gathered at the recent American Society on Aging conference in Philadelphia.

If you want to get published in the Magazine, you had better avoid terms such as “old.” The editor faults this word because “it is a judgment.” If you want to use one that is better, he suggests, use “older.”

Slon even objects to “aging,” calling it “a loaded word.” It should not be applied to adults but rather to his grandson who is currently six years old.

Another term nixed by Steve is “senior,” as applied to long-lived people. And, of course, the word “retirement” has become a big no-no, now that the concept has been dropped from the very name of AARP.

Slon approvingly quotes Hemingway, who would seem to know something about words. About this one, the great novelist allegedly called retirement “the ugliest word in the English language.”

Steve is amused by, but does not recommend, the term “wrinklies.” That is what some Brits use, especially those who produce the humor magazine Oldies.

Other sinful words in the presenter’s view are “spry,” “feisty,” and, perhaps the most damnable, that sneaky little word “still.” When Steve hears that weasel of a word, it makes him think of a certain culture hero in my home town.

John Kenneth Galbraith, that neither old nor spry nor feisty patriarch who has been alive for the last 96 years, loves to tell about the op-ed piece he once wrote on “still.” In it he expressed dismay at how often people approached him asking: “Are you still walking, talking, reading, writing?”

What astonished Galbraith was the response. He heard from more readers on the subject of “still” than on anything else he had ever written for a newspaper.

Slon offers a provocative reason for his perception that different generations prefer different words.He calls those who have lived long “pre-ironic.”

This I take to mean that we elders cannot see the delicate meanings in the words that he wants to avoid. This generalization suggests that he has not met many people older than he who have developed a fine sense of irony about life’s absurdities. In fact, however, some of us find it quite difficult to breathe in an irony-free zone.

Some of editor Slon’s preferences about words will strike most people as forced and merely precious. As if to refute him, Abigail Trafford of the Washington Post, the very next speaker on his panel, pridefully introduced herself boasting: “I’m an old broad.”

I certainly do not mind if someone wishes to call me “old.” To me, it comes as a mark of honor, not an insult. What can be better than the gift of longevity?

In fact, I take a strong stand behind “old,” a perfectly fine word even though AARP – –  and American society in general – – keep trying to dump it. AARP has been working for years to purify itself from anything that suggests people’s duration on earth. In doing so, it has successfully created a name for itself that stands for nothing.

But Steven Slon says that to use “old” is unacceptable because “it is a judgment.” Of course it is, but so is just about everything else. “You’re sweet, you’re thin, you’re kind to do that, you’re the top.”

A journalist friend supports my view of “old,” and, hitting back at the purists, calls it “the newest four-letter word.” He may not be a speller, but he is right.

About some other words I feel mixed. I very much dislike the words “senior” and “senior citizen” as applied to people my age. I fault the words largely because they have been already taken by those in the fourth year of high school and college. However, “senior” is perfectly fine when used as a comparative: “She is my senior by six years.”

I recognize “feisty” and “spry” as clichés and resolutely avoid them.

Slon makes some good points. But let’s not condemn ourselves to a linguistic correctness so fussy as to put everyone to sleep.

Richard Griffin