On being ripe

 Really old people are sometimes referred to as ripe, as in “She lived to a ripe old age.” What exactly does that mean? When does ripe old age begin and when does it end?

Ripe seems more like a fruit word than a people word, but with language being the wonderful wiggly thing it is, words can go all sorts of places. People and fruit have things in common.

What is it about old age that makes it ripe? Is it an apple just about to fall, not yet wormy? Is it a whole vineyard full of choice grapes, ready for the presses? It is an avocado, getting soft, needing to be picked, pealed, and sliced away from its huge seed? Made into guacamole? Is it a lemon, tart and acidic? Or sweet like a plum? Why do we call old age ripe?

Is there an implication that after ripe comes…..dead?

The Collins English Dictionary tells us that “ripe implies completed growth beyond which the process of decay begins.” That’s OK in reference to fruit. Not so much for people. Taking that definition literally would mean that people become ripe in their mid-twenties, after which it’s all downhill, physically speaking. (“At the ripe young age of 25, he climbed Mt. Kilamanjaro.”)

But of course that’s not how we use the term. Ripe, as in “ripe old age,” refers, obviously, to old people. Webster’s informs us that a ripe person is one “having mature knowledge, understanding, or judgment” (would that were true!) or, more simply, a person “of advanced years.” The Cambridge Dictionary gives a positive description of “ripe old age”: “the condition of being very old; used especially to talk about someone who has had a long healthy life.” Christine Ammer in The Dictionary of Clichés says that the “expression itself is of a ripe old age—it dates from the second half of the fourteenth century—and is generally used in a positive, admiring sense.”

Well, then. I wouldn’t mind heading toward ripeness if it meant having finally achieved maturity of understanding after a long healthy life. Who wouldn’t want that? But if that’s what it means, then not every worthy old person could be considered ripe. Think of the one with dementia, an unfair disease of the mind that seems to attack the virtuous as well as scoundrels, and all degrees of character in between. What happens to “maturity of understanding”? Many wise older people die of diseases like cancer or heart trouble. These probably wouldn’t be considered ripe, lacking the health factor. Could a healthy old scoundrel be considered to have lived to a “ripe old age.”

Or are all these questions just silly?

Hal said to me last night, “I don’t want to get so ripe that I begin to stink.”

Me neither.

I’m playing with this term partly because I love language and am always curious about the origins and meanings of idioms and figures of speech. But I’m also pondering it because so many terms referring to older people border on stereotype. And I’m allergic to stereotypes, especially if I’m in the category being referred to.

In my search for information about the phrase, “ripe old age,” I came across a list of related words and phrases that refer to old people. It’s from a collection called SMART Vocabulary, produced by the Cambridge University Press. Here’s a sample from the list:

aged, buffer, centenarian, codger, crock, crone, dotard, elder, gaffer, geriatric, infirm, old boy, old girl, old man, old woman, old folks’ home, old-timer, oldie, ripe, second childhood, senile, senior citizen, supercentenarian, the gray dollar, the gray market, twilight years, wrinkly

Sound attractive? What images entered your mind as you read each word? Did you see yourself? Your parents or grandparents? I’m tempted to write a poem about Hal and me entitled, “The Codger and the Crone.” Gaffer’s a nice word; Sam Gamgee used it with affection to refer to his father. But I’ve never heard it used around here.

Actually, I love figures of speech and am always on the look out for new ones. I feel a certain affection toward “a ripe old age” and wouldn’t mind that referring to me someday, as long as I don’t stink. It’s that tendency toward stereotyping I resist. Stereotypes tend to erase personality. The categories and images make it hard to see people in all their uniqueness, no matter their age. I’m not a “senior citizen;” I’m a citizen. I’m not an old person; I’m a person. And I hope I’m never a crone.

Now that that’s off my back (another interesting image), I need a snack. I think I’ll go eat an apple.

Let’s hope it’s ripe.