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I am considering three patterns:
a. [age] [person]
b. of [age]
b. of a/an [age]

I have written examples of what I mean below. Which sentences are OK and which ones are wrong?

  1. He is a young-aged guy.
  2. He is a guy of young age.
  3. He is a guy of a young age.
  1. He is a middle-aged guy.
  2. He is a guy of middle age.
  3. He is a guy of a middle age.
  1. He is an old-aged guy.
  2. He is a guy of old age.
  3. He is a guy of an old age.
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Numbers 2, 5, and 8 are acceptable, but only just. They are somewhat archaic: "He was a shrewd man although of few years" or "She was a handsome woman of middle years" sound like literary language of the 19th century or before. "He was a man of young age" sounds antiquated at best. To couple such a locution with "guy" is just weird. But if you are striving for a weird tone, go for it.

Number 4 is fine, but there are no parallel forms for the young and the old. So numbers 1 and 7 are not idiomatic. Numbers 3, 6, and 9 seem neither to be modern nor to mimic older literary locutions although they will be understood.

In short, 4 is fine; 1 and 7 are wrong, and the rest are antiquated or weird or both.

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