more Millionaire Matchmaker novelties

[Jonathan Lighter]

I left out "commitmentphobe" and "commitment-phobic.".

Roughly 100,000 raw Googlits for "commitmentphobe"/"commitment-phobe"/
"commitment phobe."

No OED.

What's more, "phobe" is gaining independent wordhood: tens of thousands of
hits on "homo phobe" (presumably someone who doesn't like "homos.")

JL
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: more Millionaire Matchmaker novelties
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I would think Facebook is driving current usage. The first two choices are
> "single" and "in a relationship". There are many more choices, including,
> "It's complicated".
>
> DanG
>
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:04 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: more Millionaire Matchmaker novelties
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> > <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > single =C2  adj. not in a monogamous unmarried sexual relationship
> [Cf.=
>  OED
> > 8b
> > > & 8c, neither of which quite fit]: =C2 "Have you ever been married?"
> "N=
> o.
> > Have
> > > you?" "No." "So how long have you been single?" "About a year and a
> hal=
>  f.
> > > How long have you been single?" [Too difficult to search for.]
> > >
> >
> > Has the expansion of this meaning driven _divorced_ out of colloquial
> > speech? I've noticed for dekkids that people that I would call
> > "divorced [and not remarried]" generally refer to themselves as
> > "single," which, IME, means - or used to mean - "unmarried now and was
> > never in the past." On TV's various "reality" shows, at least,
> > "single" means, essentially, "I'm willing to cheat on whatever fool
> > I'm currently balling" and not much else.
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> > to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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> >
>
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