At the start of the article, there’s a point made that eloquence is something we all should strive for, and then everything veers into a discussion of the plague of ageism and the infantilization of old age.
On a matter separate from his holding high the banner of clear speech, Mr. Sheppard may have been keenly sensitive to the plague of ageism in our society. This is only a guess. But he sure was touchy about discussing his age. He didn’t want to go there, even though it was obvious that he was well into his 90s and was still as universally admired as ever.
One could understand why, say, a 50-year-old actor might want to shave a few years off the résumé. But wouldn’t someone who had lived so long and so successfully be proud to announce that he was still going strong at 94?
SOME people that old “are glad to flaunt it,” said Dr. Karl Pillemer, a gerontologist at Cornell University. But many others, he said, fear that people will “treat them differently” if their advanced age is known. “Someone like him might have simply gotten tired of the ‘Wow, you’re 99 years old’ comments,” Dr. Pillemer said.
A similar point was made by Dr. Frank Nuessel, a professor of modern languages and linguistics at the University of Louisville, who focuses on attitudes about aging. Dr. Nuessel cited “the infantilization of old age” — a tendency in nursing homes, for example, to say to someone named Thomas Jones: “Tommy, how are we doing?”
“I think if I were approaching being a centenarian,” he said, “I would really be angry to be treated like a child when I’d lived a full life, had a lot of meaningful experiences and was known by the world.”
For sure, no one treated Mr. Sheppard as if he were a child. Still, when I asked about his age, he ordered me not to press. “Just don’t,” he said firmly.
Naturally, he said it in a voice that was clear and elegant.
E-mail: haberman@nytimes.com
NYC - Bob Sheppard Was Well Spoken on Art of Speaking - NYTimes.com
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