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submitted 1 year ago by NABDad@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

Obviously teenager is 13-19.

"Young adult" would start at 20, but where's the cutoff at the upper end? Similarly, what's the range for "adult", "old", "elderly", " ancient"?

If someone asks for responses from "old men", how do I know if it applies to me?

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[-] neptune@dmv.social 15 points 1 year ago

Going to be highly dependent on context. At the cancer hospital? "Old Men" might just be 80+ years. At the office, it might be 60+.

Young adult in a lot of countries will start at 18 or even younger I think? US, adulthood starts at 18 even though a lot of adult things are still closed to them (drinking alcohol, having completed college, etc). So if we mean legally a young adult is probably 18-30 whereas if we mean a young person who is starting adult life we might not mean until 22 or older when they have a chance to start a career, etc.

Elderly and other descriptors might follow the contours of eligibility for government programs like social security.

[-] MrZee@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

To add the the context dependence: “Young Adult (YA)” books and media are generally geared toward teenagers. At the library, YA is reading materials that are too complicated to call “children’s books” but still a lot easier to read than general fiction/literature/etc. From an age standpoint, kids often start reading YA stuff in late elementary school. So… at the library, young adult is close to synonymous with “teen”.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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