Srdjan wrote:

hi, How would you account for the expression "at 25 years old" ? Is it correct to write this way? I think the meaning is the same as "...when I was 25 years old", but what confuses me is the expression itself. "At 25" only would do, but having "years old" after the preposition "at" is somewhat strange. I've seen a good many examples and don't think is incorrect. Could you have a say on it plz? Srdjee

It's correct. We can say "At 15, I was a rebel" or ""At 15 years old, I was a rebel". We often admit the "years old" in less formal conversation and informal writing.

Pieanne wrote:

It may be correct, but the other version is much more used.

And how would you know that? Used where? In which context? Which register?

Pieanne wrote:

It may be correct, but the other version is much more used.

The British National Corpus gives the following information for "at * years old":

You can see from that that it is used far more in the News register and Misc than any other. It is more common to fine ellipted text (such as "- years old") in spoken forms.

Clive wrote:

Hi, "At 15 years old, I was a rebel" sounds pretty odd to me. Clive

Really, why should it?

Ben Franklin:

At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request.

........

John Hawkes:

At six, seven, eight years old I was working in the garden of this stable in order to ride free. Rituals? Of conventional dating, conventional church-going.

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Ashley:

At nine years old I was told I had cancer...Acute Lymphocyctic Leukemia to be exact. I had to go through 2 1/2 years of Chemotherapy.

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JOE, OWNER OF REGIMENTAL RECORDS/ DRUMMER FOR OPEN GRAVE:

At ten and eleven years old I was into MEGADETH, METALLICA, and SLAYER. That branched
off into more Death Metal stuff like AMORPHIS, DEICIDE, and CANNIBAL ...

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