A very dark interpretation would be he’s claiming a form of geronticide exists. The alternative, life, is not sanctioned by our society as we ignore or treat our elderly badly. Basically, we would rather they die through neglect than have them continue to be an inconvenience to us.
Grim, but that’s all I’ve got.
…or it could be the old rock ‘n roll attitude promoted by The Who and the numerous other variants of “I hope I die before I get old!” over the years. The official (sanctioned) position being that growing old isn’t better than dying.
Now that’s all I’ve got.
I took it as the sanctioned position is ‘Getting old s*cks.’
Yea, you’re probably right. I’m searching too hard for an answer that is right in front of me. Slow work day.
The sanctioned position is that heaven is better than getting old.
I thought this a CIDU because of contradictory (to me) definitions of ‘sanction’ . . .
1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
“a range of sanctions aimed at deterring insider abuse”
2. official permission or approval for an action.
“he appealed to the bishop for his sanction”
I’m 82. I kept looking for an Arlo.
My thought was this was more about the AARP and the like, whose magazines highlight how wonderful it is to be old; 70 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 30! (And don’t trust anyone under 30!) They would never countenance a headline “Well, at least you aren’t dead!”
I’m with larK- “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better” sells a lot more product than “At least you ain’t dead”.
. . . which reminds me of a story (maybe apocryphal, but still funny) about the husband who asked for a birthday cake with “You’re not getting older” at the top and “You’re getting better” at the bottom written on it. What the cake actually had written on it was . . . well, delete the quotation marks.
I WISH whoever’s reading my emails would stop it!
I meant – other than those for whom the emails were intended.
@Andréa, that sounds like a post from CakeWrecks.
“self-antonyms.” . . . is that a real thing? If it isn’t, it SHOULD be.
I’ve not idea what CakeWrecks is, altho it sounds like fun. If it’s an internet thing, I heard about this cake YEARS before the internet.
I once special-ordered a birthday cake with a random name on it, then had it crossed out and the birthday person’s name stuck in sideways. I told my friend that we’d gotten it in the day-old discounted bakery section. (And yes, we did pranks like that back and forth, so she thought it funny.)
“An auto-antonym or autantonym, also called a contronym, contranym[2] or Janus word, is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another. For example, the word cleave can mean “to cut apart” or “to bind together”. This phenomenon is called enantiosemy,[3][4] enantionymy (enantio- means “opposite”), antilogy or autantonymy. An enantiosemic term is necessarily polysemic.”
The “linguistic mechanisms” section takes up “sanction” as its example of one type.
I was thinking in a slightly different direction, in that the “alternative” is being young, which is obviously the most preferred condition. That’s the only condition sanctioned by Hollywood, it seems (or seemed for quite a while, anyway.)
Thanks for the post Mitch4.
I love language. Do other nationalities have as much fun trying to make sense out of their mother tongue as us English speakers?
cakewrecks.com Professional bakers wrecking the cake you ordered. But also check out any Sunday. That’s when they post Sunday Sweets, gorgeous cakes made both by professional and by amateur bakers.
I scrolled down past the wrecked cakes and saw some lovelies.
I vaguely remember from the Baltimore Catechism that God intended for me to serve him in this world and be happy with him forever in the next. For a third-grade Catholic, the positions of the Baltimore Catechism are as sanctioned as positions can get. Thus dvandom is correct: the alternative beats being old.
Comics I Don't Understand 
A very dark interpretation would be he’s claiming a form of geronticide exists. The alternative, life, is not sanctioned by our society as we ignore or treat our elderly badly. Basically, we would rather they die through neglect than have them continue to be an inconvenience to us.
Grim, but that’s all I’ve got.
…or it could be the old rock ‘n roll attitude promoted by The Who and the numerous other variants of “I hope I die before I get old!” over the years. The official (sanctioned) position being that growing old isn’t better than dying.
Now that’s all I’ve got.
I took it as the sanctioned position is ‘Getting old s*cks.’
Yea, you’re probably right. I’m searching too hard for an answer that is right in front of me. Slow work day.
The sanctioned position is that heaven is better than getting old.
I thought this a CIDU because of contradictory (to me) definitions of ‘sanction’ . . .
1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
“a range of sanctions aimed at deterring insider abuse”
2. official permission or approval for an action.
“he appealed to the bishop for his sanction”
I’m 82. I kept looking for an Arlo.
My thought was this was more about the AARP and the like, whose magazines highlight how wonderful it is to be old; 70 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 30! (And don’t trust anyone under 30!) They would never countenance a headline “Well, at least you aren’t dead!”
I’m with larK- “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better” sells a lot more product than “At least you ain’t dead”.
. . . which reminds me of a story (maybe apocryphal, but still funny) about the husband who asked for a birthday cake with “You’re not getting older” at the top and “You’re getting better” at the bottom written on it. What the cake actually had written on it was . . . well, delete the quotation marks.
I WISH whoever’s reading my emails would stop it!
I meant – other than those for whom the emails were intended.
@Andréa, that sounds like a post from CakeWrecks.
“self-antonyms.” . . . is that a real thing? If it isn’t, it SHOULD be.
I’ve not idea what CakeWrecks is, altho it sounds like fun. If it’s an internet thing, I heard about this cake YEARS before the internet.
I once special-ordered a birthday cake with a random name on it, then had it crossed out and the birthday person’s name stuck in sideways. I told my friend that we’d gotten it in the day-old discounted bakery section. (And yes, we did pranks like that back and forth, so she thought it funny.)
Andréa : https://www.cakewrecks.com/
As Andréa points out, “sanction” is close to being one of those self-antonyms.
But I don’t get it being other than the “approved” sense.
Not only were the ‘wrecked’ cakes funny . . . the real ones were beautiful. So much talent, for such an ephemeral item. Thanks for the site!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
“An auto-antonym or autantonym, also called a contronym, contranym[2] or Janus word, is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another. For example, the word cleave can mean “to cut apart” or “to bind together”. This phenomenon is called enantiosemy,[3][4] enantionymy (enantio- means “opposite”), antilogy or autantonymy. An enantiosemic term is necessarily polysemic.”
The “linguistic mechanisms” section takes up “sanction” as its example of one type.
I was thinking in a slightly different direction, in that the “alternative” is being young, which is obviously the most preferred condition. That’s the only condition sanctioned by Hollywood, it seems (or seemed for quite a while, anyway.)
Thanks for the post Mitch4.
I love language. Do other nationalities have as much fun trying to make sense out of their mother tongue as us English speakers?
cakewrecks.com Professional bakers wrecking the cake you ordered. But also check out any Sunday. That’s when they post Sunday Sweets, gorgeous cakes made both by professional and by amateur bakers.
I scrolled down past the wrecked cakes and saw some lovelies.
I vaguely remember from the Baltimore Catechism that God intended for me to serve him in this world and be happy with him forever in the next. For a third-grade Catholic, the positions of the Baltimore Catechism are as sanctioned as positions can get. Thus dvandom is correct: the alternative beats being old.