Accurately assessing age
By Massie Santos BallonIn spite of what the song says, age isn’t just a number, so determining the number of birthdays someone has celebrated can be difficult. From a purely physical perspective, various medical and cosmetic procedures and the number of jars and tubes from companies tagged as “anti-aging” can make it difficult to figure out someone’s age. Also, similar to the myth that there are several dozen Eskimo words for “snow,” people might employ a variety of approaches to discuss the number of years someone’s been alive. For example, they might couch references to age in terms of being either old enough or else young enough to do something or act in a certain way.
