http://pda.moscowtimes.ru/article.php?aid=174290

Friday, February 9, 2007. Issue 3593. Page 8.

Talking About the Age of Obsolescence

By Michele A. Berdy

Женщина бальзаковского возраста: a woman of a certain (or uncertain) age ###ie

###Технический прогресс -- вещь великая (technical progress is a great thing). But there is one problem: It's going so fast it makes me feel old. Way back when -- that is, about 20 years ago -- you had a decade or so to enjoy your VHS tapes before DVDs took over, and your computer broke before you needed to upgrade it. Now, all of this happens in the blink of an eye, and before you've even worked the bugs out of that snazzy printer you bought, your computer guy tells you sadly: Ваш принтер морально устарел (Your printer is obsolete).

Cruel, cruel world.

The basic verb for getting old in Russian is стареть, but you need to pay attention to prefixes. Устаревать/устареть is the verb pair you use for an inanimate object that is becoming obsolete. But устареть can also be used to describe anything that is out of date: У Вас устаревшая информация. Наша фирма уже давно ничего не производит. (Your information is out of date. Our company hasn't been involved in production for years.)

For human beings, you can use the unadorned стареть: Он стареет (He's getting on in years.) After you see someone for the first time in several years, you might exclaim: Как он постарел! (He's really aged.) You might also use the verb состариться: За год после кончины жены он сильно состарился. (He aged tremendously in the year after his wife died.)

If someone has gotten so old or decrepit he seems to have lost the will to live, you could use the verb сдать: После трагедии он здорово сдал. (After the tragedy he just seemed to fall apart.)

In Russian you can politely refer to an older person as пожилой: Пожилым людям трудно привыкать к новым условиям жизни. (It's hard for elderly people to adapt to the new living conditions.) Старый is plain old "old." Надо помогать дедушке! Он же старый человек! (You have to help your grandfather. He's an old man.) You often hear old people referred to as старик/старичок (old man) and старуха/старушка (old woman), but these can also be terms of affection for your much younger peers: Слушай, старик, давай сходим в баньку. (Come on old man, let's go to the bathhouse.)

On those dark days when you are feeling your age or older, your Russian friends -- kind, loyal, devoted and cheerful liars that they are -- will protest: Ты -- старая? Ты же во цвете лет! You -- old? You're still in the bloom of youth!) Or: Ты в расцвете сил! (You're at the peak of your powers!) Or the delightful: Ты в самом соку! (You're in your prime, literally "you're right in the juice").

These middle-aged folks can be neutrally called люди средних лет. Middle-aged women are sometimes called женщины бальзаковского возраста (literally "women of a Balzacian age"). This refers to the age of the older women Balzac wrote about fondly.

A less fond designation is женщины не первой молодости (women past their first youth). A most un-fond designation is the jocular женщины не первой свежести (literally "women past their first freshness"). This comes from the Soviet designation of продукты второй свежести ("food in the second category of freshness") and unfortunately might be translated as "women past their sell-by date."

So what is this euphemistic "certain age?" Here it gets tricky. Russian blogs insist that Balzac's women "of a certain age" were 25 to 30, but when I conducted an informal poll of Russians to find out what бальзаковский возраст meant to them, I got a range of 35 to 45.

But one blogger begs to disagree. He clarifies the question this way: Особы не первой молодости, лет под тридцать и более... (Women past their first youth -- going on 30 and older ...)

A 28-year-old woman -- past her first youth? Cruel, cruel world.

Michele Berdy is a Moscow-based interpreter and translator.