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Comment by michaelfeathers | Hacker News Reader

In the UK I've run into people who use the term `partner' for whomever they are in a non-married exclusive relationship with, regardless of whether they are gay or straight.

I don't know how common that is, or how it got started. I wonder whether it will ever catch on in the US?

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It's common, but daft. It makes every relationship sound like a firm of solicitors. I don't see what's wrong with wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend.

Many people over the age of, say, 30, feel weird about using the word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend", because they feel that it implies a young person.

I had a fabulous middle-class friend once who would refer to his Mum's boyfriend as "My mother's lover". Let's bring "lover" back.

Failing that "Other Half" or "Baby Mums".

I always thought "lover" meant the person one was having an affair with.

I've always thought that lover implied sex ('lover' describing that they 'make love'), which is not a given in all relationships.

It would probably be unusual (and super depressing) to have a sexless affair. I have also heard the term used in place of "fuck buddy" though.

I meant to imply that "lover" was defined as "someone you have sex with," not "someone you are having an affair with." It's just used in the context of an affair because your partner in the affair is someone you have sex with.

Ugh the word "lover" really creeps me out for some reason. It might be because of the Welshly Arms Hotel SNL sketch. Either way, I can't imagine referring to anyone as "my mom's lover." shiver

I haven't noticed it. I know a guy well into his 50s who says "girlfriend" and she's of similar age.

You "haven't noticed it" because you know ONE guy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Translated:

  I know many people, and none of them refer to their
  significant other as a 'partner.' For example, I know
  one guy that is 50, who refers to his same-aged
  significant other as his 'girlfriend,' and it doesn't
  seem to bother him that 'girl' is in the name instead
  of 'woman.'

This describes me (I live in the UK). I'm 31 I've been in a lovely heteronormative relationship for eight years. We aren't married, and we've called each other 'partner' for years. In my head it lives in the linguistic space between '[boy|girl]friend' and the state-sponsored '[husband|wife]'. I also enjoy its gender neutrality.

"I've been in a lovely heteronormative relationship "

Are you kidding? My sarcasm detector is failing here.

Just man-up and get married.

"partner" implies a deeper relationship than many "boyfriend/girlfriend" relationships. When someone describes someone as their partner (in a relationship context), I assume they are married or common-law (or would be married if it was legal -- e.g. gay marriage).

  a) You might not want to disclose the sex of the other person.
  b) Some people object against the term 'girl' and 'boy' for grown up people.
  c) Political reasons, there is a wider variety of relationship permutations than the above 4.

c) There are? Like "Friends with Benefits"?

And beyond. Hope this hotlinked image URL will work: http://oi49.tinypic.com/2pyaow8.jpg

I consider myself decently smart, but I can't figure out the axes on that chart.

Take the test: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-polygon-test

From the description:

This test will track three variables, but you may be surprised at what they are.

"...but I'm willing to learn."

Don't do that, please.

Sometimes charts are bad.

Nothing to do with data, or the potential learning of data.

FFS.

It's a 3D chart serialized on to 2D. Look at one of the corners, then go to the opposite one. Repeat twice more. The fact that this approach is basically fundamentally geometrically unsound doesn't help the chart's coherence. (Unless they really are claiming that these three things are in fact dependent on each other in exactly the way the 2 dimensionalization of the chart implies, which I doubt.)

For most of those options I would suggest "friend" covers it. I think "This is my part-time domme" etc is probably too much information.

The problem with boyfriend/girlfriend is that it seems strange to use the same term for a relationship in high school that lasts two months as you would for a relationship later on where you live with a person for years.

I was in a relationship with my partner for 11 years before we got married. "Girlfriend" doesn't really do it justice.

"LOVER"

Interesting. Many places, being together that long is known as a common-law marriage.

sure, but I've never know someone, when introducing their spouse, to say 'this is my common-law [husband|wife]'. Among other problems, it's quite awkward.

England has no such thing as common law marriage. It's a persistent myth. When one partner dies or leaves the other is left with very few rights.

It does in some areas though. E.g. you have provisions like this one from the housing act, talking about when tenancies can be automatically transferred, on the death of one spouse, to the other one:

"a person who was living with the tenant as his or her wife or husband shall be treated as the tenant’s spouse, and a person who was living with the tenant as if they were civil partners shall be treated as the tenant's civil partner"

(s. 17(4) Housing Act 1988 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/50/part/I/chapter/I... )

(Interestingly, an identical provision in another act - but with only the wife/husband language, as this was before civil partnerships - was used by the courts to give a similar benefit to a surviving member of a gay couple, using the non-discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Act to interpret the provision broadly to include gay couples living as partners (Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza)).

yes, there are little bits n bobs.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/your_family/family/liv...

and some places have the requirement of length of time and publicly stating that you are man and wife. This causes some to be very careful of saying wife for the sake of brevity. Girlfriend doesn't distinguish between a year and 5+ years, so many people will default to partner, better half, or significant other.

Actually, that was my first thought when I heard it. My second was to assume that it was a gay relationship. It wasn't.

Del Boy knew the solution to all of this...

"My significant other"

"Other 'alf"

"Partner" tends to better describe mature stable adult relationships better than any of the suggestions. Without a huge set of religious conditions, "husband" and "wife" carry no more baggage than "partner" used in a business context.

Others have pointed to the juvenilization potentially implied by "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." Furthermore, "-friend" fails to connote the appropriate level of commitment - even absent the impact of Facebook.

"Partner" cuts through messy reality. Polyamorous relationships. Separated spouses. Concubines (and their male counterparts).

"Girlfriend" in particular is ambiguous for women.

Here in Sweden people use the word "sambo": https://www.google.com/search?q=sambo+sweden . It works pretty well.

FYI that's a racially charged term in the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_%28racial_term%29

The bad thing is when people say "my partner" now, I think they might mean their bf/gf even when they mean business partner.

I guess it got started in non-gay context because it's awkward to describe someone of a certain age as a boy or girl.

Hah yes, that's why I started switching to saying "Co-Founder", most non business people assuming you are a couple when you are two guys (or even a girl and a guy) and introduce the other as your partner.

It's pretty common in the UK these days.

Some people still give you weird glances and awkward pauses when you use it though.

In situations where it doesn't matter (and that's most of them) I've stopped correcting people who assume we're married and I've taken my partner's surname.

It actually makes things easier. If they assume you're married, they generally have no problem talking to you about whatever they called to talk to your partner about. When they find out you're not married, sometimes suddenly you can't be trusted.

But then it reinforces the belief there there aren't other options. Or rather, it does not show alternatives as more normal than one would assume. I guess that was the point of the article.

I can understand that, but I also don't like having to fight with a company rep because suddenly I'm not good enough to talk to.

If they want to assume I'm Mrs so-so, rather than Ms so, partner of Mr so-so, and that gets me better service, then I don't correct them.

If they ask directly, for whatever reason, I don't lie.

Partner is annoying in a romantic context. It's ambiguous forces a person to ask (internally if nothing else "business or romantic?")

Boyfriend or girlfriend work just fine. Husband or wife if you're that serious.

So a woman in her 50s is supposed to refer to her equally old significant other as her "boyfriend"? Seems odd to me. "Partner" seems more dignified and has a connotation of "in it for life".

I prefer it. YMMV.

She could also use "lover", and creep out the young people who don't want to think about older people as sexual beings...

Unfortunately not all languages give you that level of neutrality: in romance languages the word partner has a gender attached to it.

I guess we'd have to use some sort of periphrasis, which is not very common raising a red flag anyway.

I prefer "significant other" if the relationship (with any combination of genders and genitals) is more serious than "boyfriend/girlfriend" but not to the level of "husband/wife".

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