'I'll eat you up.Sweetie!' 'You'll love it.Rat!'. This is described by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan: The 'opacity of the ejaculations of love, when, lacking a signifier to name the object of its epithalamium, it employs the crudest trickery of the imaginary. When proper names escape one, terms of endearment can always substitute. Terms of endearment can lose their original meaning over the course of time: thus for example 'in the early twentieth century the word crumpet was used as a term of endearment by both sexes', before diminishing later into a 'term of objectification' for women. Some such combinations seem nonsensical, odd, or too long, however, such as baby pie or love dear, and are seldom used. still current forms such as lovey-dovey, which appeared in 1819, and honey bunny', or of other duplications. Terms of endearment often 'make use of internal rhyme. A term like 'mate', or 'sweetie', shifts the focus of the request away from its imposition.toward the camaraderie existing between interlocutors'. Others have pointed out however that, in an informal setting like a pub, 'the use of terms of endearment here was a positive politeness strategy. double standard' – because 'between strangers terms of endearment imply a judgment of incompetence on the part of the target'. įeminists have complained that while 'terms of endearment are words used by close friends, families, and lovers.they are also used on women by perfect strangers. Saying 'Hey baby, you're looking good' varies greatly from the use 'Baby, don't swim at the deep end of the pool!' Certain terms can be perceived as offensive or patronizing, depending on the context and speaker. UsageĮach term of endearment has its own connotations, which are highly dependent on the situation they are used in, such as tone of voice, body language, and social context.

'Baby' was first used in 1839 and 'sugar' only appeared as recently as 1930. 'Honey' has been documented as a term of endearment from at least the 14th century. Some words are clearly derived from each other, such as 'sweetheart' and 'sweetie', while others bear no etymological resemblance, such as 'baby', 'babe', and 'cutie'. Such words may not in their original use bear any resemblance in meaning to the meaning attached when used as a term of endearment, for example calling a significant other 'pumpkin'.

Terms of endearment are used for a variety of reasons, such as parents addressing their children and lovers addressing each other. For other uses, see Terms of Endearment (disambiguation).Ī term of endearment is a word or phrase used to address or describe a person, animal or inanimate object for which the speaker feels love or affection.

Terms of endearment novel