| 28 September 2010
James Joyner notes the increasing acceptance of partner to note a massive number of potential relationships
This is an interesting evolution in the direction of gender neutral, politically correct language. "Partner" has no gender or legal implications. So, used in conversation with a casual acquaintance, it carries no information that can be used to form value judgments. The person referenced could be of the same or opposite sex. The union could be legally recognized (whether through marriage, civil union, or other arrangement) or not.
I wonder if, over time, this will become the preferred usage, with, say, "wife" becoming antiquated?
As a side note, "partner" is a somewhat peculiar word in this context, since it’s still more widely used in a business context. (There’s also it’s close cousin, "pardner," which is mostly confined to old cowboy movies.) Until some sort of convention is established (for example, "business partner" being the accepted form for that relationship), there will be some awkward confusion.
I emphasized the bold passage above. The use of a word whose meaning is sufficiently vague as to render it effectively useless as a descriptor engenders confusion rather than clarity. The purpose of language is to convey ideas. It strikes me that intentionally vague, valueless words like partner, which could refer to as Joyner says, a person of either gender, in an array of romantic, creative or professional relationships are effectively useless.
Much like love. I'll allow a recent Miller Lite commercial to illustrate my point.
We use love to describe our appreciation for beer, and the deeper feelings of affection for a romantic "partner". A flexible and therefore confusing word. Like partner, love without adequate context becomes meaningless. However, love generally has enough context as to avoid such confusions. Partner however seems to be gaining popularity because it is confusing. In which case, our fear of stark contrasts has led us to the unhappy land of meaningless words and muddled language. Further proof to the point.
"If we think words are things and we have no feelings in our words then we say things to each other that don't mean anything. But if we felt what we said, we'd say less and mean more."
In the last baker's dozen years I've often gone back to that truism from Looking for Richard. The intentional obfuscation of meaning is a devolution of our language.
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