In July, I had the honour of presenting my field research, #OurWordsMatter When a Senior Faces a Change in Autonomy, at the International Conference on Ageing and Gerontology in London, UK. This work is rooted in over 26 years of experience supporting seniors through transitions and is driven by a mission to reshape the language we use around aging when a senior needs a new living setup, whether at home or a new living community, to continue living life to their fullest.
The conference, hosted by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), brought together three academic branches at the 2025 European Conference: Ageing & Gerontology, Education and Arts & Humanities. With shared keynote speakers and focused tracks, we had the opportunity to explore our own disciplines while also peeking into others. I was a bit nervous stepping onto an international stage, but the experience was deeply rewarding.
At the first networking event, I had the delightful pleasure of sitting beside Amy. I learned that she was a dynamic leader who was preparing to leave her corporate role, managing a team of 50, to dive into a new adventurous world of entrepreneurship and AI. Her excitement was contagious. She spoke passionately about how AI will transform our lives and businesses. Most importantly, she wants to make sure it is for the better. I was very excited for her and admired her gutsy move. I could see and feel the fire in her belly!
Through our conversations, I told Amy I would make a special trip to Oxford in the hope of sitting down with someone from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). I want to discuss the emotional weight of the words “put” and “place” when used in the context of seniors moving into senior living and the role that dictionaries have to thoughtfully guide the evolution of our language. I have witnessed how heavy these two words are, and how they affect every conversation around aging. Put: to put Mom in a nursing home, is one suggested usage of the word put in the OED. I would like to change that. While they’re not the only dictionary with this suggestion, I figured being down the street, I would start there after the conference.
On my way back to London, I also stopped into a very special retirement village that teaches sign language as an activity, to help break isolation for residents who are hard of hearing. Their thoughtful work flourished after being featured in the documentary Old Hands, New Tricks. The field research I am doing has shown me, firsthand, that sign language looks very different when we sign to place Mom vs help Mom move.
My lifelong mission is to bring change to our language when a senior faces a change in autonomy so that we can shift our language from bulldozing words to empowering ones.
Amy attended my presentation and was deeply moved by the insights I shared about the power of language and the urgent need to rethink how we speak about aging. Over the course of the conference, we bonded initially over simple things like what museums to visit, but soon found ourselves exchanging ideas about business, purpose, and the bold, transformative work we were each undertaking. What surprised me the most was how strongly my mission to empower seniors through language resonated with someone stepping into the world of AI.
Just this week, Amy sent me a message, that stopped me in my tracks:
“Thinking about you and how the words we use matter today while doing some certification test prep work. The course has been updated from data privacy to a heavier focus on AI, which makes sense given current world.
There’s a section that talks about “emancipating AI from human oversight,” and after googling, (I see) it’s become a pretty popular industry term for evolving past human in the loop design/decision making.
It just strikes me as madness. Why not call it full automation or fully autonomous decision making. Labeling it with emancipation is anthropomorphizing, and changes how the brain approaches the dilemma.
And this course is all ethical compliance materials. Wild. Scary. But here we are I guess.”
Her words echoed my own concerns. The term emancipation, used to describe removing human oversight from AI, carries deep connotations. The words strips down and distorts how we process the ethical implications.
Yes, our brain has a big part to play in processing the dilemma! Our words affect our thoughts, and our thoughts affect our actions.
I never imagined that my work with seniors, so grounded in the raw, real aspects of life and living, would come back to me in an organic way from the shiny, abstract world of AI. To hear how impactful my work is, and how Amy’s ear has become attune to “yuck” language in other industries made me proud and put a huge smile on my face.
Our words matter in all that we do, and I am extremely proud to contribute to this shift. Change doesn’t always come in sweeping reforms. It often trickles quietly through conversations, reflections, and the courage to question the words we use when something doesn’t feel right. We all hold the power to not just invite change, but to ignite it. By sharing our visions, and challenging the language that does not sound right to the ear or the heart, we can move towards a more conscious future for everyone.