One of the exciting things about the English language is that the pool of words is huge. Enormous. Gigantic. Why, there are so may words to choose from that if you wanted to use all of them you'd be a quinquagenarian before you got to zyxt.
Derived from the Latin word quinquaginti, which means 50, a quinquagnarian is someone who is between the ages of 50 and 59 years. Your 'umble scribe is fast closing in on quinquagenarian status and so currently languishes in the pool of quadragenarians.
Unsurprisingly there is a list of these words used to describe the decade a person is. And also unsurprisingly they are little used. Here, for the lexically fastidious, is the list:
- vicenarian: 20 - 29
- tricenarian: 30 - 39
- quadragenarian: 40 - 49
- sexagenarian: 60 - 69
- septuagenarian: 70 - 79
- octogenarian: 80 - 89
- nonagenarian: 90 - 99
- centenarian: Over 100
So how do you say it? Try this:
/kwing-kwuh-juh-NAR-ee-uhn/
The next vital step is to try using it casually in a sentence while chatting with you friends. Something along the lines of "I believe young women are particularly attracted to intelligent quinquagenarian men." This is, of course, guaranteed to have young women run quickly from the room in an attempt to escape from an aged pervert who uses dirty words. Unless you're lucky enough to be at a Linguistics conference surrounded by eager young students who are looking to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder of Academia by allowing you to impress them with your cunning linguist skills.
The subsequent step is to try using it casually in a sentence while drunk. This is harder but much funnier. Your attempt at "I have cut back on drinking since I became a quinquagenarian" ends up spewing forth as "Eyef cut ze dringk cuz am a quin quin gin gin quinny gin aryan." This is the last thing you forget before falling backwards off a stool and ending up having your stomach pumped by a 350lb male nurse called Otto who hates smart Alecs.
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