Let's Talk About Endearments

[rsadelle]

Coworker L's partner A now works for us. I've heard L start to call A "sweetie" or a diminutive version of A's name more than once. This is what originally got me thinking about the use of endearments, and then I asked for endearment suggestions for something I was writing and got back the same answer from three different people - and it was an answer that doesn't feel right to me for the story. I did not grow up in an endearment-using household. My mom will sometimes call us "kiddo" or "sweetie" and one of my grandmothers used to call us "kid," but that's about it. For myself, I'm most likely to use endearments when talking out loud in response to a TV show or celebrity interview ("honey," "sweetheart," etc., and usually in an "Oh, honey, no" sort of context) or with small children who I will call "kiddo." A quick google didn't lead me to any useful research on the usage and prevalence of endearments (surely some linguist has studied this), which means I'm going to rely on anecdotal evidence from you. So talk to me about endearments! Do you use them? Did you grow up in a family that used them? Do you hang out with people who use them? Have you noticed patterns in how people use them/who uses them? Would you expect people from different regions to use different endearments? What about people in different professions or in different socioeconomic circumstances? Would you expect men and women use different endearments? Have I used the word "endearments" so many times that it's now lost all meaning?

Comments

[reni-days.livejournal.com]

this is such an interesting topic to me, it is causing me to delurk.

i didn't grow up in a house where endearments were used. i had a nickname, and so did my youngest sister, but the middle sister never did, and the nicknames were shortened forms of our name--in fact, i go by mine exclusively to this day.

that said, i am a nanny and very much prone to using endearments. it feels natural to me--i used them with my sisters when they were small (mostly "kiddo" and "bean"--don't ask where that one came from, though it is still how my youngest sister is listed in my phone.) i use them with the boys i care for now ("kiddo" again, and "monster" or "demon." their mother cheerfully calls them both "heathen." i call the little one "bro" constantly.)

i also use them with certain friends, though not with others, and i'm not sure what makes the difference. i've got one friend who is four years older than me whom i exclusively call "kid," and one i have never referred to by anything short of her full first name. my ex and i both used "baby" when speaking to each other, but not in a cloying or sentimental way, and it never sounded at all weird in context. another of my exes i never used any nicknames or endearments for at all, and it annoyed me deeply when he would refer to me as "dear" or, worse, "pooh bear."

i think, for me, sincere endearments that fall naturally into use are generally acceptable and well-received. it's a lighthearted and familiar way of expressing fondness and affection, which is always a good thing.

that said, a lot of people tend to force it, for reasons i don't understand--either to be cute, like the ex that tried to call me pooh bear, or to somehow play to a crowd. that's always offensive and grating to me, even when they're not being used in a deliberately condescending way, like the 'oh honey, no,' example.

it's weird that in fic, there are almost no circumstances in which i find endearments to sound natural except between an adult and a child, considering how many of them i actually use. but they are nearly never written in a way that feels natural or organic, so they end up making my teeth itch, especially during sex scenes.

wow. /longwinded. sorry, apparently i had a lot of opinions. /o\

[rsadelle]

This is all so fascinating to me - I'm glad you delurked to talk about it!

Your perspective on endearments in fic is really interesting. I think I mostly use endearments in fic in a (friendly) joking way - "hey, baby," kind of things where they're not together/using it in a serious way - (I'd have to go back and look at a bunch to be sure), probably because I don't use them in real life myself. (My other related thing is people using each other's names in dialogue. I write that way, and it's an accepted thing, but I almost never use people's names in conversation with them.) My particular fic need was for something intimate one character calls the other in a sex scene (which I didn't make clear in my initial request and then everyone suggested "babe"). I may end up just having him use the guy's first name since he spends the rest of the story calling him the nickname version of his last name.