>My husband (partner to Bel)

Thanks Marty for unravelling my mention of the word partner in the above quote. I think you were spot on!

I only noticed it myself, when reading the transcript, just now – oh dear! I am definitely not sharing a relationship with Bel (although I don’t rule it out as a concept, given enough money for airline tickets!!!!)

I think the short answer was that it was a quick, off the cuff, joke that didn't really work in the slo-mo nature of the chat session. In a more quick fire situation, I would have been able to hint at the reason but it was all a bit slow and certainly doesn't stand close inspection. Think conversation, rather than essay.

It did indeed relate to Bel's posting on the subject of partners. It would have worked better (and would have been funnier) as "my partner (husband, to Bel)", thus demonstrating the inherent weakness in the on-line-chat process. Even though I can type nearly as fast as I think. I can't do this as grammatically as I would like. To prove it, I have already made several corrections to this message and it still isn’t quite right.

I am sure that because our brain has been trained to take in years of perfectly honed and re-written prose, our brain is rather unforgiving of the imperfectly written word, even when we know that it has been written quickly in a conversational way. The written word, as we have said many times, is robbed of the “twinkle in the eye” that gives away a subtle touch of irony and renders a joke “readable”

This creates a problem in some environments. Do we accept that communications will become more "quick fire" allowing for the possibility of inaccuracy or misunderstanding? Alternatively, do we set higher standards for e-communication, where communication is checked to the same standard as a business letter? In business and politics, misunderstandings cost time and money. We don’t write verbatim minutes of a meeting, should we be careful in publishing a verbatim report of a “chat” conversation. Here, we are amongst friends and no big decisions are being taken, so it doesn’t really matter. In the wider context, how many negotiations conducted using a chat or a whiteboard would bear scrutiny?