Let's Settle This 'Elderly' Dispute

Earlier this week, we ran a local crime story titled "," which stirred up a side discussion among our readers about age.

Every so often we will run a story with the world "elderly" in the headline: such as or .

These 'elder' posts almost always initiate a discussion as to why or why not the individual we've written about is old enough to be elderly - so we've decided to settle the dispute once and for all as part of our new column.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines elderly as "rather old - being past middle age."

Responses to these stories included:

• The headline used the descriptive term "elderly". Since when are citizens below the age of retirement referred to as "elderly"? The author of the article and/or report needs to find more apt language.
• I, being a 63-year-old woman who is working full time and still very active, resent the fact that a 64-year-old woman was identified as "Elderly," Now please don't misunderstand me I have no problem with someone being actually "Elderly," but 64 years old??? The National Institute of Health still considers age 64 as "middle age."
• Come on! You're considered elderly as soon as your turn 65 and even then it really depends on what kind of shape you're in.
• The only people who think 65 isn't elderly are already 65 years old.
• How old was the person who wrote this story? 19!? A "child"!?
• I'm a 70-year-old woman who is still working and active - does this mean that I'm elderly?

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Thanks to this column, we've learned that our readers ; don't think you ; and are split on whether or not .

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Now we want to know - where do you stand?

Let us know by voting in our poll below and sharing your opinion in the comments section.