(no subject)

[vaznetti]

wisteria_ is collecting everyone's most loathed fanfic words. It's very funny, and you should go take a look.

I was a little surprised to see "partner" and "lover" there, though, because both are words I use in everyday contexts--I grew up with the use of "lover" for homosexual partners ("Your cousin and her lover will be coming for dinner on Tuesday" or "So-and-so's lover just got a job in Texas, so they're moving to Houston." Everyday stuff.) And I know long-term unmarried hetero couples who use "partner." This is a little less common but is usual in introductions: "Have you met So-and-so's partner?"

Is this simply a matter of social context? In places where it's bad and shameful to be gay (or to be an unmarried couple, I guess) I can see why people avoid these words--otherwise, I'm not sure.

Comments

[elynross.livejournal.com]

That may be part of it -- that it sounds somewhat unnatural to some of us. I can't imagine many people using the term "lover" casually around here. *g*

In part, though, I know it bothers people when a pair has just had sex for the first time, and suddenly it's all "the lover." Beyond that, I think it's similar to the objection to overusing descriptive epithets -- it seems unnecessary, and more natural to just use the person's name. The cases you describe, it sounds like the person in question isn't a personal friend, or very well known, so saying "it's so-and-so's lover" is more informative than "Cousin Sally is bringing Renee." Otherwise, they'd just say Sally is bringing Renee probably, right?

So again, I'd say it's contextual, and whether it seems necessary or affected in that context.

[jcalanthe]

Interesting that you associate lover/gay and partner/straight - I think of partner as long-term/committed relationship, regardless of who's in it (and know married folks who still call each other partner). Although this is apparently a regional thing - back in VA at a wedding, I introduced B as my partner, and people did not understand what it meant (not that they asked or anything - why get clarification when a blank look and ignoring will suffice?).

But thinking about it, most fanfic isn't about long-term established relationships, and lover/partner doesn't get used in the contexts we're talking about.

[pauraque]

I find "lover" kind of an unpleasant word in most contexts, because it seems unnecessarily specific. It's like you're saying "the person I have sex with" every time you refer to them -- TMI. It also implies a non-committed relationship to me.

But I like "partner" a lot. It's a nice word, implying commitment, fairly neutral between gay and straight, not overtly sexual.

The trouble in fic is usually not the choice of words, but the excessive use of the same epithets over and over in place of a character's name. Unless you're writing about Voldemort (or unless your name is Homer), that's not good style.

[spican.livejournal.com]

I have a love-hate reaction to that kind of thread. It is amusing to get one's own pet peeves wittily confirmed by others but the majority of the words are terms that I know I'd find perfectly all right if used with a little skill. And my hackles raise at how this discussion and others like it always veers into absolutist self-righteousness, like thou shalt *never* use a different word than "said" to attribute dialogue, and thou shalt *never* use a different word than "blue" or "red" to denote the colors blue and red, and, and ...

... and oh God what a boring world it would be if writers listened to "never"s. It would be so boring there would be no point in reading anything at all.

I know I have used many of the words listed and probably on occasion used them badly, but I've also used some and still think they were the exactly right words in that context; I think they were so right that I don't give a damn if it made some reader roll their eyes and stop reading. And I'd prefer to make the occasional error in good taste rather than start thinking about all the things people hate to see when I'm writing, but it's very hard not to start making mental notes when you read this kind of list. It's a sort of imagination straightjacket.

So all in all I think I hate it more than I love it and the thread annoys me more than it amuses me. Which is not directed at you, I hope you understand -- you're just the piano player. *g* It just makes me feel extremely contrary when people start wagging their pointer finger and saying "you should not and you should never!" It makes me want to go out and do exactly what I'm advised never and not to do. (So look for smirking, moist cum-fic from me next. ;)