CONSTANT COMPANION

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 09:02 AM 4/9/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>On Apr 9, 2005, at 8:28 AM, alison murie wrote:
>
>>Wasn't there a tea brand of that name?
>
>Constant Comment.
>
>>   It brings to mind a nasty cinnamon/clove- flavored tea that had a
>>heyday among the genteel 40 or 50 years ago. Horrible stuff.
>
>still available in better stores (as they say).
>
>but as for "constant companion", i do think i recall it as a
>journalist's expression for a heterosexual unmarried partner, usu. the
>female of the pair.  the idea was that the couple appeared together so
>often in public that some sort of more intimate relationship could be
>inferred.  if i recall correctly, when no such implicature was
>intended, the word used was "escort" (and i *think* this was more often
>used of men accompanying women).
>
>"longtime companion" strikes me as more recent, and mostly used for a
>homosexual partner -- what was referred to in my younger days as
>someone's "uh, friend".
>
>but by now "longtime companion" has a fussy old-fashioned air to it,
>and "escorts" are uh, companions for hire.
>
>someone should search around for these expressions.  in newspapers and
>magazines, but especially in fan and celebrity publications.
>
>arnold

I often see "special friend" in obituaries, even those of older local
("townie" and rural) people here.  It's used for either male or female
friends, with or without a sexual (usually heterosexual) partnership
connotation.