Another kind of buddy

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Jun 15 14:32:12 UTC 2007


At 5:25 AM -0500 6/15/07, Paul Johnson wrote:
>My wife's family refers to adult male friends as "boyfriends"  "Uncle
>Fred's boyfriend, Peter..."  This has always seemed off key to me.  Do
>adult heterosexuals have boyfriends?
>
I hope not.  I've been citing the asymmetry of "boyfriend" and
"girlfriend" for 30 years in language and gender classes.

LH

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