Q: I have a 57-year-old friend. She's been married three times. Her first husband died many years ago. Her second husband also died and she used to collect Social Security benefits from his record because she has two disabled sons from that marriage. Those benefits ended when she remarried for a third time. Now she is planning to divorce her third husband. If she does, will she be able to resume collecting widow's benefits from her second husband? She still has the disabled sons at home. One is 19 years old and the other is 20.

A: Assuming her third marriage ends, she will be potentially eligible for widow's benefits once again on her second husband's Social Security account. But she will probably have to wait until she is 60 years old to receive those benefits.

You said she has two "disabled" sons and that their benefits ended when she remarried for the third time. My hunch is that her benefits ended when she remarried, but her sons' benefits ended not because she remarried but because they turned age 18. If they had been classified as legally disabled for Social Security purposes, they would still be collecting benefits from their deceased father's record.

If she hasn't done so already, your friend should contact her local Social Security office to find out if her sons might be eligible for what the Social Security Administration calls "disabled adult child" benefits. If they are, then there is a chance she might be due widow's benefits now as the mother of disabled sons.

But if the sons can't be classified as "disabled" for Social Security purposes, then your friend will have to wait until she is 60 years old to file for widow's benefits from her second husband's record.

Q: What is a "dack?" It obviously has something to do with Social Security because we heard a Social Security representative on a local radio show this morning, and she mentioned to a caller that the caller's daughter might be due "dack benefits."

A: Don't you just hate it when a government official uses in-house jargon when trying to explain Social Security rules to the general public?!

I know I do. In fact, I spent a good chunk of my career with the Social Security Administration fighting the bureaucracy and trying to get them to use plain English when talking about or writing about Social Security's complex rules and regulations.

Anyway, the term is "DAC," not "dack," and it refers to the benefits I briefly mentioned in the prior answer: benefits for "disabled adult children."

Normally, children under age 18 qualify for benefits as a dependent on the account of a parent who is getting either Social Security retirement or disability benefits. Or on the account of a parent who has died. The child is eligible for benefits just because he or she is under age 18. The fact that the child may or may not be disabled is not an issue.

But it becomes an issue after the child turns 18. That's when benefits usually stop. But the law says a child can continue to receive benefits after age 18 if that child has a severe disability. And those benefits would continue -- potentially forever -- assuming he or she remains disabled. For example, there are many people in the 30s and 40s getting "disabled adult child," or "DAC" benefits because they have been disabled since childhood.

A person with Down syndrome is a typical example.