> I have a word question. It seams that many of my friends and family have significant others with whom they've been with for extended periods of time, without being married. In conversation, I find it cumbersome to describe so-and-so as my mother's Significant Other. Boyfriend or girlfriend has an adolescence to it that doesn't really describe it correctly. Significant Other is a long phrase, that, with the state of marriage these days, seems to be coming more common. Is there a word in our language that describes this situation? Or, is there a word from another language that we should adopt to better describe a long term unmarried partner?
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
If you would be my POSSLQ (poss-el-cue)
You live with me and I with you,
And you will be my POSSLQ.
I'll be your friend and so much more;
That's what a POSSLQ is for. - Charles Osgood
and for those not in the acronymic know, POSSLQ : Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters.
this
supposedly came out of the Census Bureau, and had some cachet during the 80s, but hasn't really caught on. (it is, however,
in the AHD, without comment on its origin.)
I'm pretty used to the term "partner" being used to describe significant other, married or otherwise in the UK, although the term of choice tends to be a guide to the right-on-ness of the group. I remember being asked in the US why I would use the term partner even though I am married, It's probably because I work in a sector where there are seem to be more non-traditional relationships than traditional ones.
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wordwizard
And, oddly enough, you never hear prescrips puling and micturating about how "significant other" is grossly misused and terribly transmorgrified from its original meaning. Go figure.
Gosh. I tend toward prescriptivity and I would use the phrase "significant other" only in a way which made it clear that I was mocking its use at all.
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Gosh. I tend toward prescriptivity and I would use the phrase "significant other" only in a way which made it clear that I was mocking its use at all.
And what would be the mocking meaning that you would intend?
"significant other" is one of those terms that are useful in psychology, and that the profession, by its nature, unfortunately popularizes.
edited for clarity
And the popular definition varies significantly from its original meaning used among psychologists. See Dale's
Wordwizard link. Third post in the thread.
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And the popular definition varies significantly from its original meaning used among psychologists. See Dale's Wordwizard link. Third post in the thread.
Which says:
From _Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable_ (2000):
Significant other ... is of American origin, dating from the 1970s, and was adopted from the jargon of sociology as a term for a person who directly influences an individual's self-evaluation and behaviour, as a parent does a child or an employer an employee. [One source says this sociobabble is first recorded in 1940--Susumu]
Feb 14, 2003 Susumu Enomoto, Japan
Interesting: its use in psychology (which I'd thought was its origin) already transforms, narrows, or subverts it; and
Its original meaning would probably not have been "important" other person, but an other giving a significance to someone, that is, in a semiotic sense, to put it briefly, if obtusely.
I really dislike the term significant other. Other than what or who? Does it mean you have a few insignificant others on the side? Or a few extra ones who are slightly more important, yet not quite important enough to be significant.
Significant doesn't imply love or partnership in my mind. The guy who whales on you every day is significant, but sure isn't your partner.
Whether he'd be called your s.o., and not just your s.o.b., I don't know. But he surely is your partner; and that's the rub.
(or the woman who smacks you with her mood ring, I might add)
Then there's the term "friends with benefits." I'm not sure how you'd express that in the singular though. Benefitted friend?
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Then there's the term "friends with benefits." I'm not sure how you'd express that in the singular though. Benefitted friend?
How about "friend with benefits"?
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I really dislike the term significant other. Other than what or who? Does it mean you have a few insignificant others on the side? Or a few extra ones who are slightly more important, yet not quite important enough to be significant.
Significant doesn't imply love or partnership in my mind. The guy who whales on you every day is significant, but sure isn't your partner.
"Whales", Belmar? Are you alluding to the term "wails"? I don't get it? 
Oh well, anyway, I echo your distaste for the term "significant other".
"Other" what? "Significant" how? Being beaten is certainly significant.
Silly damn word police. They have have imbued our Culture with nonsense. The only term more vile (because of it's vagueness and omnipresence) is "issue".
Today we have no problems...we have "isssues". 
May God save us from ourselves and the comet.
May God save us from ourselves and the comet.
Jah, and don't worry too much about the comet.
Bel means someone who beats you or otherwise abuses you.
"Partner" seems to be the word most used in my circle of friends, many of whom are gay or lesbian. Some of my hetero-and-legally-married friends use it, too. I've also heard "companero" with the Spanish pronunciation for a male partner, although I have not heard an equivalent for a female partner.
When my husband and I were in the pre-nuptial stage, but living together, one of my friends called us "hubby" and "wif", abbreviated from the legal terms because, she said, we weren't fully "husband" and "wife" yet. Cute, but grating.
I sometimes called David my "um", because people who didn't know us well would sometimes introduce us to others as "Elizabeth Creith and David Syme, her - um - "; this confusion was caused because I didn't make David take my name when we married.
Re: boyfriend/girlfriend being adolescent, I have heard ninety-year-old women refer to their boyfriends, said "boys" being of about the same vintage. Ditto for adult males referring to a woman of forty or more as a "girlfriend".
Ah, maybe it is a Canadianism... to whale on somebody means to smack them around, to beat or pound on them.
In French we use chum for a man and blonde for a woman. Since it avoids the girl/boy terms it doesn't have a childish connotation that girlfriend and boyfriend do. In Québec, people very rarely get married without living together first, and many couples never get married at all, so the terms are pretty accepted without second thought.
Mind you, chum probably wouldn't work in English because its other definiton...those bloody fish guts you throw overboard to attract sharks.
> this confusion was caused because I didn't make David take my name when we married
Beautifully put - I have the same "issue".
I'm OK with Chum, Bel - but I think people might have problems with Blonde, unless it was a multi-choice - Brunette, Mouse, Chestnut, Dappled ... oh no that would be a horse ...
Ya, I always wondered why blonde wound up meaning girlfriend.
It is much more common to say "she has blond hair" (elle a les cheveux blonds) than to say "she's blond" (elle est blonde) though, so the predominant definition of blonde is girlfriend.