Barbara Quirk: Don't let anyone call you an old fart
Barbara Quirk — 5/06/2008 9:14 am
So someone at work calls you "an old fart." Does it really matter? According to a recent study from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, it matters a lot.
Bob McCann, an associate professor of management communication at USC, shows ageist language has played a major role in age discrimination lawsuits. "Our research has clearly shown links between ageist language and reported health outcomes as broad as reduced life satisfaction, lowered self-esteem, and even depression," said McCann. "Such language can even hasten retirement decisions."
Age-related comments such as "the old lady," "that old goat," "too long on the job," "old and tired," "he had bags under his eyes" are just some of the hundreds of ageist comments unearthed by McCann and his colleague Howard Giles from UC-Santa Barbara.
read the rest and comments.
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/284755
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."
Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
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