Fwd: question

[Ingrid Piller]

there's a book by Ernst Leisi. 1993 _Paare und Sprache_ Tuebingen: utb.
[couples and language; it's in German] - and he collected and classified
terms of endearment that his students in Zurich reported to him
(anonymously). You'll find everything you ever wanted to read about terms of
endearment: terms for body parts, pet names, other animal names (many of
them pretty disgusting, actually), diminutives, all kinds of language play
(with Standard German, Swiss German, French, English etc.), gendered usage
etc. - if your friend reads German, this is the perfect source.


> Forgive me for using FLING for this question, but I thought this group
> would probably have some good answers to the following question:
>
> >> I have a question for you two as linguists.  I'm writing a kind of
quirky,
> >> humorous piece for Valentine's Day called "Terms of Endearment."  It
> >>looks at
> >> the terms that different societies use as endearments (so far, US, UK,
> >>France
> >> and Spain).
> [..]
> >> And--more importantly--can you come up with some endearments for me
from
> >> languages you know?  I would need the original word/phrase plus an
> >>absolutely
> >> literal translation into English (eg "mon chou"="my cabbage").
> >> Any info gratefully received...
>
>
> So if anybody knows of anything that I could pass along to my friend, let
> me know.
>
> - Monica
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Monica Macaulay
> Chair, Department of Linguistics
> University of Wisconsin
> 1168 Van Hise
> 1220 Linden Drive
> Madison, WI  53706
>
> email:  mmacaula at facstaff.wisc.edu
> phone:  (608) 262-2292
> web:  http://ling.wisc.edu/~macaulay/monica.html
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~