"gerries" for old persons

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 15, 2004, at 11:39 PM, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:

> Does anyone know anything about this word? I heard it used by the
> 20-something son of a friend, and Google turns up some hits, but it's
> hard to tell what its status is. It also turns up "wrinklies" and
> "crumble" -- are there other new items of this type?

not at all new, but "(old) trolls" has been common among gay men for a
long time (for older gay men, where "older" might start at 40 or even
earlier).  a gay bar whose clientele is mostly trolls (the Midnight Sun
in the castro, for example) is sometimes known as a "wrinkle room", but
i've never heard "wrinklies" for trolls.  "gerries" is also new to me.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)