lifestyle

lifestyle

The term will be familiar to modern readers in the meaning given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (2006): ‘the way in which a person lives’, although it has a much older, specialized meaning introduced to the language of psychology by the neurologist Alfred Adler in the 1920s. In recent years it has been absorbed into marketing jargon to mean ‘the sum total of the behaviour patterns and likes and dislikes of particular customers or a section of the market’ and has developed an attributive or adjectival use (i.e. coming before a noun):

• The latest lifestyle choice for the vibrant elderly is the ‘retirement village’ —Independent, 1995.

In some contexts, way of life, or even just life, seems preferable to a word that has become so bogged down in promotional hype. The derivative word lifestyler, meaning ‘someone with a special lifestyle’ has an ephemeral ring but is now common, often linked with the word alternative to denote people who lead unconventional lives:

• The centre is built on a hilltop amid a broadleaf wood and is home to a community of proselytising alternative lifestylers —Holiday Which?, 1991

• The recent influx of new voters from Boston into southern New Hampshire and alternative lifestylers into neighbouring Maine had boosted the Democratic vote —Independent, 2000.