While listening to an episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater recently, I seconded a police detective's irritation. She pushed back against her police captain's repeated descriptions of a murder victim as "an old woman" and "a poor old woman." Twice, the detective exclaimed, "She wasn't old!"
The victim in the episode was 52. That's my age, so I thought, "That's right. She's not old. Stand your ground, detective!"
Even in a work of fiction, people ought to avoid using the word old pejoratively.
