I might call ya'll old but I'd never call you dumb. Last thing I want is to get hemmed in by a crowd of old men with bad intentions, strength in numbers and all that. Ya'll are like great grandfathers to me, that's how I feel about you.
That's probably the natural result of trying to dumb down the explanation so people can understand. Throw "perpendicularity" (or more correctly "orthagonal") into the explanation and the average person's eyes just glaze over.