So what do you call your unmarried partner?
Last week, I invited readers to help Dame Judi Dench in her attempts to find a suitable word for her “chap”, David Mills. Dame Judi doesn’t wish to get married again, and complained in an interview that “partner” sounded too business-like.
It seems that she is not alone, for my inbox was inundated with suggestions from you all. Margaretha and William call each other “Elsie” (LC = life’s companion – “this seems to us to encapsulate our relationship with each other”). One lady suggested “Life Enhancer”: “It’s a phrase that keeps our relationship fresh and on the right, respectful and grateful track.”
Jill, 76, calls her 80-year-old other-half her “live-in lover” (go, Jill!). Many suggested “companion” or “consort”. Sally thought that our leading lady might like to have a “leading man”, while John had a suggestion for what Mills should call Dench: “WHISP, meaning Woman who is Hot, Intelligent and Still in her Prime.” Alison in Edinburgh wrote to say that “it is worth being a Scot” because “we have the term ‘bidie-in’, pronounced bye-dee-in. It derives from ‘abide’, as in living with, and applies to either gender.”
But my favourite entry came from William, who said that Dame Judi could describe her other half as her “woman’s lib – live-in bloke”. If only I weren’t married, I might start using it myself.