SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Increasingly Significant Issue

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Alice Faber wrote:

#One of the participant in the internal newsgroups for panix (where I have
#an account) is, if I read his standard sig correctly, involved in a
#polyamory newsgroup. He's referred in passing to his "primary".

I've heard the same terminology: primary, secondary.

This may not be an independent data point, though, since the people I
know who use the term are also participants in such a ng. AAMOF, they
use panix.com, so they may be the same people!

There was recently a rather warm off-topic thread in the lois-bujold fan
group over this terminology and possible alternatives and why.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large