Words: Posslq n. (acronym)
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Your support makes all the difference.WHATEVER happened to Posslq? This word originated, it is said, among Californian census-takers in the 1960s, as an acronym for "Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters". Pronounced "possle-queue", it filled a gap created when language had failed to keep up with social practice.
Combining an endearing hint of "possum" with a touch of mock officialese, it was an ideal word to introduce a live-in lover in a way that could not offend.
Yet, as Jean Aitchison claimed in her 1996 Reith Lectures, it is not posslq but "partner" that has become "the standard word for a life-companion".
How can we have abandoned the beautiful posslq for the mundane "partner"? I blame the gay lobby. Pssslq would have been too much to bear.
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