SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Increasingly Significant Issue

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:13 AM -0400 4/11/02, James A. Landau wrote:
>In a message dated Thu, 11 Apr 2002  9:55:20 AM Eastern Daylight
>Time, "Joanne M. Despres" <jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM> writes:
>
>>But seriously:  I believe "lover" is still used by GBTs, especially
>>those in the above-40 age bracket, though less automatically than
>>it used to be.  (I also once heard it applied by a heterosexual
>>woman to her live-in boyfriend.)
>>
>>Joanne Despres
>
>"lover" is frequently used to mean an extra-marital sex partner,
>more often the man the wife is having an affair with than the woman
>the husband is having an affair with.  From the old Scottish folk
>song:
>
>Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, oh where ha'e ye been?
>They ha' killed the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green

Whence "Lady Mondegreen", and mondegreens as a general category for
reanalyses (a la pullet surprises).

>He was a bra' gallant and he rade at the ring
>The bonny Earl of Moray, he was the lover of the queen.
>
>     - Jim Landau

Besides the extramarital vs. non-marital dimension, I think "lover"
is used more to describe the S.O. of someone else (especially a
stranger, or a character in a book) than oneself these days.  Some
have suggested it overemphasizes the sexual aspect of the
relationship (cf. "Grandma, I'd like you to meet my lover", a context
where "umfriend" is more likely to occur), others find it
objectionable for the asymmetry Jim notes--it's more frequently used
for male non-marital consorts than female ones (at least female
consorts of males), and the old contrary pair lover/mistress is no
longer one we feel comfortable with.  Perhaps that's why it's
survived (outside of the extramarital affair context) a bit better
for same-sex couples (or n-tuples), where the asymmetry feature isn't
a problem (although the overemphasis of sexual aspect may be).

larry