Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I call my husband DH on message boards. That's not distancing or alienating either. It's just message board speak.
Guess you would really be upset to know that my pastor calls his wife "the little Mrs", eh?
It doesn't "upset" me; it just seemed odd and impersonal to me since none of my friends use it, and I was merely curious how others see it. DH, DW, DD, DS, and "the little Mrs." seem affectionate to me, as does "my better half" or "my other half." (Though I don't like the idea of a married person being only half a person, but I realize it's not meant that way!)
And I doubt that "the" rather than "my" is "message board speak" since it's not quicker to type.
Well, the C-D region does have a lot of bitter men in it which may explain some things.
In a thread essentially critical of men embellished with yet another accusation by you ? I do agree that people do often react to slights with varying degrees of hostility.
In my case, happily married and lover of women everywhere, I just sense that I don't like you in particular.
I personally find the DD, DW, DH, DS thing annoying, if only for the fact I actually read them in my head as "dee-ess," not "dear son." But I get that it's a shorter way of saying "my son" over and over.
"The wife" is certainly not the worst way a man could refer to his female spouse.
The OP was musing this was some strategic , overtly planned, linguistic oppression the secret society of men routinely concoct.
Um, actually I "was musing" no such thing. I was merely curious if others though it sounded distancing and alienating, but implying that I meant it was a purposeful tool for oppressing women is preposterous. I'm an entomologist who wouldn't have gotten anywhere in her early career without getting along REALLY WELL with men, as there were hardly any women in my field when I was in graduate school - and none of my professors were women. So stop with your feminist-bashing assumptions about me. I have more male friends than female friends. If I'd heard women using the phrase instead of men, I STILL would have been curious about it, but I don't.
Let's just leave it at that and stop assuming we know what everyone else's agenda is - or whether they even have one.
Reading a post on C-D recently I was struck, again, by several men calling their wives "the wife." Saying "the wife did this or said that" reminds me of someone saying "the dog chewed up my shoes." I don't think I've ever heard a woman say "the husband." Usually it's "my husband."
Any thoughts on why this is? It seems a little, I don't know, distancing or alienating to me.
Heck if I know why people say the things they do but I'd rather be called either of those than "the ol' lady". That one makes me steam when I hear it and luckily I've never been called that.
I've been called "the" wife many times, and it doesn't anger me but I also don't care for it either. I find it impersonal to speak of someone like an inanimate object.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
word that is spoken just to look for something to be offended about. This is a prime example.
