Beau=girlfriend

[James Smith]

Beau=girlfriend
Another SOTA?

James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.


--- On Sun, 9/7/08, Leslie Decker <leslie at FAMILYDECKER.ORG> wrote:

> From: Leslie Decker <leslie at FAMILYDECKER.ORG>
> Subject: Beau=girlfriend
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Date: Sunday, September 7, 2008, 10:22 AM
> I sheepishly admit to occasionally reading the gossip
> columns from WENN
> news on the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) website...
> Recently I
> have noticed that they have started using the word
> 'beau' to describe
> someone's GIRLfriend, as in:
>
>     Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman
> <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000151/>
>     has found love again, just one month after he announced
> he was
>     divorcing his wife of 24 years.
>
>     The first image of The Dark Knight
>     <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/> star and
> his reported new
>     /*beau, Mary Joyce Hays*/, surfaced in the media this
> week
>     (ends05Sep08), showing Freeman hugging the blonde
> divorcee and
>     smiling widely.
>
> http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0562131/
>
> I have always thought of the word 'beau' as a
> rather outdated word for
> boyfriend--it is a masculine form after all.  After seeing
> this blurb,
> which is the second time I noticed it on this website, I
> went looking
> (for about 5 minutes) for other examples of the word being
> used in this
> way.  I DID find this entry from the Urban Dictionary:
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beau which
> seems to imply
> that more people think beau is acceptable for girlfriend.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Leslie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org