Dying young

Tough question . . . you don't get any older than dead.

75 for men. 92 for the bitches.

I think it's anything under 60.

I think the standard Biblical span is "fourscore and ten"--70 years.

I think I was about 26.

Noddy, I think a score is twenty. Fourscore and ten would be ninety... Maybe 70 is "dying young"!

easy ...take it easy at 120

I think that it has to do with your frame of reference. When I was younger, I probably would say 60. Now I think that dying before the age of 80 is "dying young"!

Whatever age I die at is gonna be way too young.

Younger than 50.

IMO.

Wy--

You're absolutely right. "Fourscore and ten" is the Gettysburg address. Three score and ten is the Biblical span.

I've always thought if you died before 60: that's dying young.
However, my family has a bad reputation for leaving early with the a big bang.

It has always made me shutter though to hear condolences or sighs of "He/she was so young".
We're all too young to die!

I'm already on borrowed time. Anything from here is bonus time!

Anon

You are still dying young if you are 63.
My parents are in their seventies. My mother reflected to me recently that the older she gets the older "old" gets. For instance, she does not consider 72 "old", but 85 is still old to her. She suspects that when she is in her 80's 85 will not seem old to her anymore.

Nonetheless, for me if someone dies at under 63, i feel inclined to say he died young, but if someone dies at 64 it seems to be within "normal" parameters. I make this assessment at age 39. I am certain at age 64, that will seem young to die.

It seem to me to be a culturally and socially biased perspective.

My two cousins died about six months apart, they were the youngest and oldest of four brothers. The youngest was 42 when he died of skin cancer, the oldest was 47 when he died from a heart attack. The chasms in my family have always echoed on losing them both "so young." Now though when I see some of the pictures of those deployed in the war(s), they look like such babies (i.e. in some cases barely old enough to drink), especially now that I'm sending these books overseas. So I guess it's all within your context/each situation how you define that expression.

verrrry good....can i borrow that?

"Young" is a relative term, so we have to have a second contrasting expected average mortality. When the average person died in their thirties, 15 would be half a lifetime. In those days infant morality was very high, and only about 1 of four infants lived to become adults. To die young in that context would probably have been considered death before 5 or 10 years of age.

Today when American men typically live to 85, middle age comes between 40 and 45. In this context dying young generally means that death occurred between the ages of 1 and 25. This is not only an Age when extended life is expected, it is also much more egalitarian than the past. The gap in the life expectancy of the lower socio-economic orders are about the same as for the wealthy privileged classes. That is a far cry from mortality statistics prior to the 19th century.

There are, of course, no hard and fast rules that govern the meaning of the term. It can mean pretty much what the speaker means it to. Death is as natural as being born, and no more to be feared or avoided. We cry both coming and going, and the world continues to spin.

You've noticed time moves faster the older you get? If you consider that at age two, a year is 50% of your experience, and at age 50, a year is 2% of your experience, etc. etc. , if you live to be 72, you have lived half of your "apparent" lifetime before your tenth birthday.