(fairly) new (but unlisted) "benefits"

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 5, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Eric Nielsen wrote:

> I re-listened to the song (great musical phrasing), and "best friend" is
> clearly most important: The "with benefits" is a relationship enhancement.
>
> At the end of this clip, she discusses the song a little:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQJ4_QgLwLc&feature=grec_index
>
>
…and in fact she says there that the song is about being in love with someone (in addition to the benefits part), so definitely not the canonical meaning for "friend with benefits", which Ben's polyamory postings (well, not *his* postings per se) indicate had already developed by the mid-'90s.  But maybe the line in the song was ripe for reinterpretation and there was a clear sense of a lexical gap that needed filled.  I do seem to recall "sex friend" from the 90s, which was one of the alternate forms listed in one of those postings, but maybe it was just too transparent for the purpose.  Even if "friend(s) with benefits" isn't a euphemism as such, its translucency no doubt helped its success, even if no one used it in contexts like "Grandma, I'd like you to meet Sandy, my friend with benefits."

LH

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