When is your Golden Birthday? I know that the Golden Anniversary is “50”, but I just heard on tv a couple different people (of different ages) say they reached their Golden Birthday.
50 was golden for me.
All the decorations, pre-stamped with 50 were gold.
I’m sure it’s just an extrapolation from the wedding tradition, not nearly as long-honored however.
Well, I had to look it up in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
The Golden Wedding of 50 years only dates back to about 1874 in print.
The Silver Wedding of 25 came earlier, and was borrowed from the original “Silver Wedding” which was a Scottish custom of giving a newlywed couple only hard cash at the wedding, scorned by their English conquerers as simply uncivilized.
The Golden Age was part of Greek mythology, the time of prosperity when the earth was new, corresponding to a sort of Eden for everyone.
In other applications/definitions “50” is a lot. Consider: 50 years of marriage is a long time. And it takes two. 50 years of age is not a big deal now. Only a shallow self-adoring person would consider it as important. I would call it tin or aluminium.
I always thought your golden birthday was when you turned the age of your birthdate: i.e. your birthday is March 16th, your Golden birthday is your sixteenth.
My birthday is April 30th, so my Golden birthday was when I turned thirty (a depressing event).
That is correct. We had a thread about it a while back. See http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=36668