--refers to the drying out of the discs themselves, which is very common with age and makes them more likely to flatten or bulge, as they are less "spongy" than previously.

The foramen are the "holes" between and to the sides of the vertebrae through which nerve roots pass to connect to the spinal cord itself. Normally, the nevre roots take up somewhere between one-quarter to one-half of that space; if the foramen narrow due to disk bulging or overgrowth of bone (hypertrophy), the nerve roots may be contacted/compressed and cause symptoms. This is not spinal cord stenosis per se, but compression of the cord proper or of the nerve roots can be caused by similar overgrowth of bone and/or disc bulging.