To find the use of the word ‘fiancé’ irritating?

Yes, they use that term, because it’s the standard term to use. Can’t imagine why it would irritate you though.🤷‍♀️

Fiancé entered English usage around 1826, though affiance and fiancé appeared briefly in the 14th century to mean to pledge/betroth. Fiancé itself became popular before WW1 (not by, before).
Hardly recent.

Fiancé doesn't bother me at all but I really really hate "hubby".

YABVU

Fiancé is the word used to describe the man you are engaged to be married to. How else would you refer to him?

Should I not refer to my brother as my brother or my daughter as my daughter?

I'm another one who can't stand the term partner to donate a romantic relationship. I'm in the US and it's used a lot less here. It always sounds like a business arrangement to me.

I used to have a boyfriend. He became my fiancé when we decided to get married. When we did get married he became my husband. If I was mentioning him to someone who didn't know him I would say "my boyfriend", "my fiancé", or "my husband". To refer to him as anything else would have been silly and pointless.

If you don't like the word fiancé, that's definitely a you problem.

You said it was teenage to use a word like fiancé as it was ‘a klaxon’ for marital status apparently. That seems…unusual for teens. Do you feel the same about husband?

You're being a wee bit oversensitive. She knows you haven't met him and she's explaining her relationship to him..It's not that bad surely.Unless you just don't like the woman and every little thing she does is annoying.

They are affianced. Aka engaged. It’s a factual state. YABVU.

I’m married but never ran around declining me and Fiancé were doing x , y, z. Thud reeks of desperation. Yes , you are getting married- we know ! Oh I cooked dinner for my fiancé! It’s utterly vomit inducing !!!!! Me and my fiancé went look at new floors for our renovation….. yes, we’re doing a Reno 🤣

They are different! A subtle difference but that's the beauty of having lots of words.

I do think some women like to use the term in that they are basking in the atmosphere of their upcoming nuptials. And good for them.

For them and many others it is not pretentious or cringeworthy and has no negative connotations to it at all. Why should it? In an ideal world you will only be a fiancée once. Enjoy it!

I hope you're equally as disgusted by the word 'pregnant' then, with its keenness to convey that the person is about to have a baby. It's so gauche to be happy and excited about such things.

I don't think that most people use fiancé for any reason other than 'oh, that's what he is now', but even if it were the case, god forbid they might be excited that they're getting married.

Well, we know what his intentions were then!

Maybe. It does seem to go hand in hand with a certain keenness to convey to people that you are about to get married.

Again, this is anecdata, and subjective. But I can’t help noticing it.

"Its just too much information. Its “look at me, I’m nearly married, don’t you know!” No one cares."

"It doesn’t mean I am attributing dubious motives to someone who uses the word."

...I think you might be.

Maybe it’s more the repetitiveness of the word that’s annoying, rather than the actual word.

What is desperate about it?

If she is talking about the man she is engaged to why shouldn't she refer to him as her Fiancé? What else is she supposed to call him?

Sounds to me you have a problem with people being engaged. And actually,as you find people talking about husbands and wives so boring , with marriage as well.

She isn't doing anything wrong. However when she gets married if she starts referring to him as Hubby then anyone taking exception to that i would totally agree with.

I feel we should use 'Intended', and it should always be capitalised eg 'My Intended and I were engaging in sexual congress at the weekend, when, suddenly...'

“But I don’t there’s an objective truth that dictates one is completely beyond the pale and the other is fine.”

Well I have already tried to explain this to you - one is a proper word, the other two aren’t. That’s an actual objective difference.

Yes.We should use 'betrothed' 🤣

@OtterlyAstounding

And then people use the term now simply because it's in existence, and in use, and is the correct term to use. It's fine to dislike a word, but it's strange to project your own feelings about that word onto others, and attribute motivations to them that may well not even exist

I don’t think it’s strange at all: people do it all the time (on here and in real life). There are nearly daily threads on here about “words/phrases you hate”. I feel like I have worn out the “holibobs” and “hubs” examples but they are cited so often they are a cliche: I think most of the time people mention them just because someone else has said them before and they are easy to remember.

People often have visceral and entirely irrational responses to certain words or phrases just as they do to people or places. Its bound up with their upbringing, with their lives and with a million other factors.

It doesn’t mean I am attributing dubious motives to someone who uses the word. I am perfectly aware that this is my issue and no one else’s. It just means somewhere deep down inside me it rings a bell which I don’t like. It is what it is.

Fiancé/fiancée/husband/wife are simply words that describe a relationship. If someone wants to define their relationship, why does it matter to another person? If you don’t like the terms, don’t use them - but don’t act as if your opinion should dictate the choices of others.

No, not as major (although for some Christian couples I know, it was still absolutely like that), but it does involve getting married, which is legally still pretty major!

What's ~~an engagement~~? Personally, I told my husband 'we should probably get married' while in the kitchen one night, while hunting in the pantry for a packet of baby rusks, and he said 'sure, if you want to', and then he was my fiancé until we were married. Not very glamorous, but accurate. Is that ~~an engagement~~?

Re. 'a major change' -- historically, absolutely. I mean, in Victorian times, middle-class couples could not be alone together before there was an engagement, or write to one another. Now, not so much.

Fiancé is pretentious but to elope is acceptable rather than unpretentiously running away, absconding, or getting married in secret.

Did you climb out of the window into the arms of your waiting lover.