[Ads-l] Not in the OED -- perhaps with good reason

[Laurence Horn]

Good point on the perception of self-conscious silliness, although I
suspect I regarded "thrice" as a silly analogue of "twice" when I first
encountered it (not having an OED handy to confirm cites back to the 12th
century).  Sort of like "Me three!"

Another strike against "throuple" is the orthography/phonology mapping;
despite "couple" as the obvious model, one's first guess on encountering it
in print (as opposed to bedroom) is to pronounce the first syllable as in
"through", rendering it opaque.

LH

On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 1:46 PM Stanton McCandlish <smccandlish at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > a third bird will join in raising the young of the season
>
> This may help explain a Gaulish mythological figure, Tarvostrigaranus (Bull
> with Three Cranes).
>
> > throuple
>
> I've encountered that before, in writing about polyamory, though "triad"
> and "trio" are much more common. I get the impression "throuple" is
> self-consciously silly.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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