The Pronoun Game
19 Mar 2009 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneAnother version of the pronoun game is the "life-partner" game. IE, what do you call yours?
When Wax and I first hooked up, I struggled a lot more with this. It's not just a matter of the pronoun game: I didn't want to call her my "girlfriend" to people who already knew about her, or who at least knew that I was gay, either. It's less to do with pronouns in this case and more to do with my lack of satisfaction with the available terms.
Our society has a surprisingly limited range of formal, semi-formal, and business-casual terms for one's life partner. In American English it's pretty much "husband/wife" or "girlfriend/boyfriend". There's also the word "partner", which fits into any setting besides legal documentation with approximately the ease of a bull in a china shop.
My grandfather and step-grandmother, after cohabiting since before my dad even graduated from college, only got married a few years ago. At that point they'd been together over twenty years, and they only bothered with the legal formality because it significantly simplified some of the legal papers and things they needed on retiring and moving halfway across the country. For most of my life, I was forced to play the life-partner game ON BEHALF OF MY GRANDFATHER. My choices were "My grandpa's girlfriend", "My grandpa's common-law wife", or "My grandfather's, well, she's like his second wife, except they're not married, but they've been together for twenty years." Seriously, modern conversational English? Seriously?
My grandpa and step-grandma could afford to ignore it because they were both employed full-time and owned their house, but the fact is that in America, there's a substantial financial incentive to wed, especially if you have children, in the form of tax breaks. That's not the case in the Northern European welfare states (our model is different from the UK's - it's not European but Northern European here): each income is always taxed separately; social services are always given out separately, including universal healthcare, which means partner health benefits are rare (if they exist?); and a common-law marriage exists after a certain period of cohabitation (for purposes of calculating household income in case of unemployment, housing assistance, govt childcare subsidies etc) even if the partner is a same-sex foreign national (that's why I now qualify for Finnish social security). The legal benefits conferred by marriage (or 'registered partnership' - legally the same, but the distinction exists because Finland has a state Lutheran church which officially disapproves of teh gays) are essentially confined to a) death (inheritances), b) power of attorney, and c) citizenship (the process of application is probably still a little thick - I've never really investigated it, because citizenship itself wouldn't confer any benefit aside from the legal right to live, work, and receive social benefits in the rest of the EU: so if we decided we wanted to move out of Finland, that's basically the only time it could be useful).
Across the US and Western Europe, divorce rates have been increasing for decades. I think it's something above a third of marriages that end in divorce, right? There's significant sociological research on this subject. And marriage rates have fallen sharply. In the EU even more than the US, cohabitation is gaining substantial ground on marriage. Many heterosexual couples forego the formality entirely, and even if they don't, several years of cohabitation prior to marriage is the growing norm. It's been the subject of a memorable episode a few years ago of the US National Public Radio show "A Way with Words", where "language experts" (writer/journalists, I think they actually were, although one of the new hosts is a linguist) discuss modern language issues with guests and call-ins: these are modern heterosexual US yuppies struggling for a graceful way to say "cohabiting partner" in conversation.
The Scandinavian tongues don't have these problems. Casual Swedish not only tends towards the expressions "my man/woman" and "my spouse/partner", it also contains the sexuality- and gender-neutral noun "cohabitor" (that's a literal translation of sambo which, however, specifically refers to a cohabiting partner, never a roommate). (Finnish actually only has only one pronoun for 'he/she', requiring you to go out of your way a bit to specify gender, which causes some hilarity sometimes, like when Wax kept trying to come out to her clueless work acquaintance a few years ago who just couldn't get that I wasn't a dude.)
Now, there are dialects that allow at least for synonyms for "girlfriend/boyfriend" like "boo", which Wax and I use frequently. There are outmoded expressions like "gentleman friend" (which I think I saw Miss Manners advocate recently) and "better half", which I currently favour ironically. None of these are appropriate for, uh, business-casual or formal occasions, however. They won't do for a conversation with your boss or an interview at the Employment Bureau. In Finland, where "partner" is understood by both Finns and Swedish-speaking Finns as the English translation of the Finnish and Swedish terms they're familiar with, I need feel no compunction other than the aesthetic. I know, at least, that it won't introduce social awkwardness, and that for purposes of employment, or interaction with the government, I don't have to play the pronoun game because I have legal equality.
But I think part of the problem is that "partner" can still be ambiguous in English, depending on the context. While it is recognisable as shorthand for "life partner", we've all read the buddy-cop slash fics where it's not clear whether they're professional or personal partners in some conversation or other. (This is in fact the foundation of the buddy cop genre, but a) I digress and b) we all knew that, anyway.) But "life partner" sounds twee in a candle-lighting manner - like an artificially-constructed euphemism. At least "my other half" (and "my better half", which is probably a playful or inexcusably sappy take-off of the former expression) seems to more accurately convey the weight of a life-partnership, but its flowery connotations can't be fully stripped away: it's fit for playful and ironic usage, or possibly if you really like purple prose and can keep a straight face through it for romantic usage (see the other half of his soul), but it's not really fit for all casual conversations, because you don't always want to introduce irony or humour when you're talking about your life-partner. And I guess the solution in realistic terms of language change would just be to claim "partner" by making the usage of it so widespread that it took the place of "sambo" in Swedish, but since its other uses are hardly going to die out... I don't know: I don't like it. On the other hand, I can hardly advocate for "boo". I mean, I could, but there's no way that's going to happen.
When Wax and I first hooked up, I struggled a lot more with this. It's not just a matter of the pronoun game: I didn't want to call her my "girlfriend" to people who already knew about her, or who at least knew that I was gay, either. It's less to do with pronouns in this case and more to do with my lack of satisfaction with the available terms.
Our society has a surprisingly limited range of formal, semi-formal, and business-casual terms for one's life partner. In American English it's pretty much "husband/wife" or "girlfriend/boyfriend". There's also the word "partner", which fits into any setting besides legal documentation with approximately the ease of a bull in a china shop.
My grandfather and step-grandmother, after cohabiting since before my dad even graduated from college, only got married a few years ago. At that point they'd been together over twenty years, and they only bothered with the legal formality because it significantly simplified some of the legal papers and things they needed on retiring and moving halfway across the country. For most of my life, I was forced to play the life-partner game ON BEHALF OF MY GRANDFATHER. My choices were "My grandpa's girlfriend", "My grandpa's common-law wife", or "My grandfather's, well, she's like his second wife, except they're not married, but they've been together for twenty years." Seriously, modern conversational English? Seriously?
My grandpa and step-grandma could afford to ignore it because they were both employed full-time and owned their house, but the fact is that in America, there's a substantial financial incentive to wed, especially if you have children, in the form of tax breaks. That's not the case in the Northern European welfare states (our model is different from the UK's - it's not European but Northern European here): each income is always taxed separately; social services are always given out separately, including universal healthcare, which means partner health benefits are rare (if they exist?); and a common-law marriage exists after a certain period of cohabitation (for purposes of calculating household income in case of unemployment, housing assistance, govt childcare subsidies etc) even if the partner is a same-sex foreign national (that's why I now qualify for Finnish social security). The legal benefits conferred by marriage (or 'registered partnership' - legally the same, but the distinction exists because Finland has a state Lutheran church which officially disapproves of teh gays) are essentially confined to a) death (inheritances), b) power of attorney, and c) citizenship (the process of application is probably still a little thick - I've never really investigated it, because citizenship itself wouldn't confer any benefit aside from the legal right to live, work, and receive social benefits in the rest of the EU: so if we decided we wanted to move out of Finland, that's basically the only time it could be useful).
Across the US and Western Europe, divorce rates have been increasing for decades. I think it's something above a third of marriages that end in divorce, right? There's significant sociological research on this subject. And marriage rates have fallen sharply. In the EU even more than the US, cohabitation is gaining substantial ground on marriage. Many heterosexual couples forego the formality entirely, and even if they don't, several years of cohabitation prior to marriage is the growing norm. It's been the subject of a memorable episode a few years ago of the US National Public Radio show "A Way with Words", where "language experts" (writer/journalists, I think they actually were, although one of the new hosts is a linguist) discuss modern language issues with guests and call-ins: these are modern heterosexual US yuppies struggling for a graceful way to say "cohabiting partner" in conversation.
The Scandinavian tongues don't have these problems. Casual Swedish not only tends towards the expressions "my man/woman" and "my spouse/partner", it also contains the sexuality- and gender-neutral noun "cohabitor" (that's a literal translation of sambo which, however, specifically refers to a cohabiting partner, never a roommate). (Finnish actually only has only one pronoun for 'he/she', requiring you to go out of your way a bit to specify gender, which causes some hilarity sometimes, like when Wax kept trying to come out to her clueless work acquaintance a few years ago who just couldn't get that I wasn't a dude.)
Now, there are dialects that allow at least for synonyms for "girlfriend/boyfriend" like "boo", which Wax and I use frequently. There are outmoded expressions like "gentleman friend" (which I think I saw Miss Manners advocate recently) and "better half", which I currently favour ironically. None of these are appropriate for, uh, business-casual or formal occasions, however. They won't do for a conversation with your boss or an interview at the Employment Bureau. In Finland, where "partner" is understood by both Finns and Swedish-speaking Finns as the English translation of the Finnish and Swedish terms they're familiar with, I need feel no compunction other than the aesthetic. I know, at least, that it won't introduce social awkwardness, and that for purposes of employment, or interaction with the government, I don't have to play the pronoun game because I have legal equality.
But I think part of the problem is that "partner" can still be ambiguous in English, depending on the context. While it is recognisable as shorthand for "life partner", we've all read the buddy-cop slash fics where it's not clear whether they're professional or personal partners in some conversation or other. (This is in fact the foundation of the buddy cop genre, but a) I digress and b) we all knew that, anyway.) But "life partner" sounds twee in a candle-lighting manner - like an artificially-constructed euphemism. At least "my other half" (and "my better half", which is probably a playful or inexcusably sappy take-off of the former expression) seems to more accurately convey the weight of a life-partnership, but its flowery connotations can't be fully stripped away: it's fit for playful and ironic usage, or possibly if you really like purple prose and can keep a straight face through it for romantic usage (see the other half of his soul), but it's not really fit for all casual conversations, because you don't always want to introduce irony or humour when you're talking about your life-partner. And I guess the solution in realistic terms of language change would just be to claim "partner" by making the usage of it so widespread that it took the place of "sambo" in Swedish, but since its other uses are hardly going to die out... I don't know: I don't like it. On the other hand, I can hardly advocate for "boo". I mean, I could, but there's no way that's going to happen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 12:57 pm (UTC)In French we have/use 'companion', which as many of our words do has two gendered versions: 'ma compagne' (my female companion) and 'mon compagon' (my male companion). In modern usage it *clearly* means 'life partner', and even 'live-in life partner' if there's not precision that you didn't shack up together. I think that usage arose from the sixties/seventies when people started living together as concubines (this is the offical term in France, or was, but its connotations are VERY different from the English usage of harems and the like - it carries several different strands of meaning. that administrative usage is not giggle-worthy to us, is what I mean).
compagne/companion used to mean something more generic like friend, and of course 'someone in the same compagnie as me' (groupe, including a specific military unit bearing that name), and in specific contexts these uses survive to this day . 'mon compagon the voyage' is 'the male person I travelled with', so it could be the friend you shared gas with or the guy you spent the whole train journey talking to... But 'Wax, ma compagne, works for a phone manufacturer' clearly conveys 'my female life partner Wax works for a phone manufacturer'.
It's my favorite way to put it and I would LOVE an English equivalent. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 12:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 10:17 pm (UTC)Okay, I'm a grown up.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 12:57 pm (UTC)i see boyfriend/girlfriend getting elevated in seriousness. i also see a spreading of the acceptance of S.O., for significant other.
mostly I see partner, but it does not have the full meaning of spouse or life partner, as you say.
I've watched the changes in family structure that you describe and it's all so interesting. what we're really doing is so different from the past cultural assumptions (divorce is "bad," and yet it's so common now as to be unremarkable. stepfather, stepmother, so common. no one bats an eye) and the terminology is so far behind. i should get hold of more of the marriage research you mention.
i've been married three times and am currently married to the father of my kids, fwiw.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:24 pm (UTC)Fail, English language.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:25 pm (UTC)Remember the humorous references to PoOSLQ a few years ago? But that didn't cover same-sex couples. And it was too cumbersome to catch on.
I have no idea what term or terms will emerge. To bad we don't have the elegant French terms your other commenter describes in the US! :). I think "partner" or "life partner" is where it's going in English, but it's so twee. I can go with S.O., myself, but that's not a word that feels good in your mouth.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:49 pm (UTC)And see, for me, it's not the pronouns at all. I wouldn't mind a gender-specific term at this point; it's just that "girlfriend" is juvenile and "wife" invokes a gender-hegemonic institution that I find distasteful. Perhaps I'll go with "spouse". It's a little more pleasant to pronounce, at least...
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:15 pm (UTC)I call Marna my girlfriend, but that's not really accurate. I think technically she's my fiancee, since I asked her to marry me and she said yes, even though there'll probably never be a state-sanctioned certificate and ceremony to go with it. I think we're counting "when I move to Canada" as when we'll consider ourselves married. But fiancee requires a whole lot of context and explanations. When she's with me, I sometimes introduce her as my partner and vice versa, but that always just feels odd when she's not there, it's just such a clunky term.
And that's even before you add in the boy, who is my somethingorother (boyfriend? partner? I can't find a term that really fits) and Marna's common law husband. The whole thing leaves me kind of beating my head against the wall and has lead me to just referring to them as "my girl" and "my boy" in casual conversation. But that does nothing to solve the formal situation conundrum.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 01:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 02:02 pm (UTC)Then again, it's only useful up to a point. What does "sharing living quarters" mean? I mean, I shared living quarters, platonically, with my roommate. And you could put "same sex" into the acronym instead, but it'd sound the same...
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 02:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 02:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 02:31 pm (UTC)A friend of ours used to call my partner my "fatter half." That's always been my favorite!
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 04:21 pm (UTC)As for getting married, though, since it has concrete real-world effects in, you know, taxes and power of attorney and stuff, I don't think it's necessarily a privilege that needs to be renounced out of solidarity. I mean, sometimes you could really use a tax break. I'd take it if I could get it.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 02:46 pm (UTC)I'm comfortable with "wife", to describe me both me and my partner, but my gf has strong feelings against it. Like
What I want is a word for my roommate, who is way more than a roommate; we're domestic partners and (quite possibly life) companions who simply aren't romantically involved.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 04:11 pm (UTC)Then again, you could call her your heterosexual lifemate. Thanks to Jay and Silent Bob, that term actually has a bit of recognition.
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 10:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 08:42 pm (UTC)My grandmother and her Partner, Juanita, have been together for most of my life. And they were friends for years before that. When I was younger, I would refer to Juanita and Grandma as "My Grandma and My Juanita"- before that, my mum had us refer to her as "Aunt" Juanita. But that has more to do with how we reference family friends? my "Aunt" Kris is my mum's childhood friend. . .
My grandfather (the ex husband of the above mentioned grandmother- teen pregnancy resulting in a marriage that lasted JUST long enough to graduate 6 kids from HS) Has had both "Girlfriends", because he dated much younger women when I was a wee one, and other such things. He's been with Sandy for. . . Gosh, I don't know, nearing 10 years? They won't get married because Sandy's divorce from her Ex Husband isn't recognized by the ex husband's country (Egypt) and she has had to go back there to handle legal issues before. For a long time we used "Grandfather's Ladyfriend" as the term for her, and now it's kinda warped into "Grandfather's might-as-well-be wife". . .
I don't know, but I hope that we get something established like that. . .
(no subject)
Date: 19 Mar 2009 10:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22 Mar 2009 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Mar 2009 11:41 am (UTC)