I can't understand the term "anti-aging."
Ditto for its equally baffling synonyms: "age-defying," "age-reversing," "age-perfecting," "age-deflecting" and "de-aging" (a neologism that suggests the patina of time can be sprayed off with the same stuff used to de-ice airplanes).
It's not that I'm linguistically challenged. I can easily parse "anti-wrinkle" and "anti-cellulite": furrows and dimples are visible, concrete attributes. For those who view them as the skin equivalent of senescence, be my guest: rage, rage against the appearance of cellulite.
But to be "anti-aging" seems about as logical as being "anti-Tuesday" or "anti-weather."
—The New York Times, April 15, 2007
