Re: Personal Conjugation based on Closeness

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> Tristan wrote:
> > Unless usage differs outside of Australia, it's actually 'aunts and
> > uncles' (like 'black and white', 'husband and wife', 'mum and dad',
> 'fish
> > and chips', or 'knife and fork').
> >
> I recall that my mother and her contemps. always referred (first name
> basis)
> to their married friends with the woman's name first-- Janet and Jim,
> Jane
> and Bob, etc. (though one uncle's in-laws, whom she didn't like, were
> Olaf
> and Annie).  Since my father didn't have much say w.r.t their social
> life, I
> don't know what he would have said.
>
> Most of my friends being gay, the matter is irrelevant-- Dave and
> Barry=Barry and Dave, Sally and Cy etc. (But most of the time the one
> I
> know/like better goes first.)  The few m/f couples I know tend to go
> by
> man's name first-- Matt and Kim, Dick and Staci.  That's also how I
> refer to
> my nephews and their wives--- as does my sister, but of course they're
> her
> sons, and she doesn't much like their wives....And most of her close
> social
> friends are widows, so husbands don't enter into it..
My parents' brothers and their wives always get named m-f; Anders and Ino*, Kent
and Helena, etc. This may have something to do with that it's the men that're
genetic relatives, the women in-laws. Other married couples we know tend to be
known under their family names in the genitive (the man's if the wife's retain
here girl name).

* She's originally named Inocencia, and is, of course, Spanish.

                                                                 Andreas