1243 Spryt

I guess I have to admit it. I’m getting older. The proof is the other day I was doing something that required both quickness and flexibility and someone else told me I was “spry.” If I was truly younger they would have said I was “agile.”
One the one hand, “spry” sounds like it could be a derivative of sprite, those young fairies that hang out around woodland streams dancing their flighty ways through Greek myths.
But no. Most people think spry applies to old dancers. Such subtle distinctions creep into language. The dictionary definition for spryness is not that flexible. It says simply, “active, nimble, lively and brisk.”
And yet everyone I talk to says they think of it as active, nimble, lively and brisk, but done by an old codger.
There’s another elder word—codger. You know when someone is called a codger he’s a cranky old cuss. It’s a word that comes from cadger, as in to cadge something. So there’s the implication with codger that he’s also a crafty old cuss, liable to trick you out of something, possibly if he’s trying to boost a drink while he’s out playing nickel poker with his cronies.
Crony is one of those words that has nothing to do with age in the dictionary either, but does in real life. You always think of a group of cronies as being older folks too, and usually male. You don’t think of a clutch of women being a bunch of cronies.
When in doubt, use the chicken formula. Cronies are old men with rooster necks. Groups of older women can cackle like a bunch of hens.
A gaggle of young folks are peeps.
Words can be spry too.
America, ya gotta love it.