BEING OLD, OLD-PEOPLE AND THE BURDENS OF BURDEN

Burden is today often applied to elderly people in two senses, for the fiscal load of income support and health and social care costs, and f or notions and scales of care-giving effort and stress. It does not ho wever convey straightforward meanings for its understanding is affecte d by two millenia of metaphorical and rhetorical usage. The use of bur den tends to simplify relationships, whether between age-groups of a p opulation or between a carer and an elderly person, and it communicate s senses of a nuisance and an excessive charge. Portentous implication s are invoked from biblical senses and derogatory overtones are streng thened by association, earlier this century, with racial stereotyping. An etymological survey reveals many sources of the word's versatility and rhetorical power. Important extensions of usage towards the two c ontemporary gerontological applications are then studied. A bibliometr ic examination of the surge in the word's social science use since the early 1980s is undertaken, and the paper concludes with a discussion of current usage as evidence of current attitudes towards, and constru ctions of, old age on the part of politicians and policy analysts.