old [OE] This word shares an ancient root with Latin alere ‘to nourish’, which links it with *alimony. The old boy network providing mutual assistance (and often career advancement) among people from the same social and educational background goes back to the 1950s. Members of such a group might well refer to ideas of group loyalty and tradition in terms of the old school tie—values seen as associated with wearing the tie of a particular public school. The first writers to use this phrase were those astute social commentators Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell in the 1930s. An old wives’ tale is a widely held traditional belief now thought to be unscientific or incorrect. This phrase, with its earlier variant an old wives’ fable, has been part of the language since the early 16th century. It is first found in William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible, where the faithful are instructed to ‘cast away’ such stories. Some behaviour becomes inappropriate as you get older, and there is a risk for some of being considered a dirty old man first recorded in the 1930s.