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

A fiancé is a boyfriend/partner though!

He is a boyfriend she is going to marry. No one else needs to know that they have promised to marry each other.
It's different from husband/wife because those terms have legal status.

“why is being allergic to “fiancé” weirder than the mania people have on here about the words “holibobs” and “hubs””

maybe because fiancé is a perfectly normal word and holibobs and hubs are twee/messed about versions of words rather than being normal words like fiancé is.

Excuse me, but you say “wanky”!

I was responding to a PP who said she didn't know how not to just refer to her husband as her husband at work without introducing him

I always felt really wanky for saying it (can't explain why!), so I always said partner instead.

And there is no equivalent in the English language. But when we consider the quality and standard of English cuisine (there I have just done it, pretentious me), the equivalent might be ‘over cooked’.

And also, when they say "my husband". That's a nice, easy clue, used by millions.

Fair, its obviously not a majority opinion! I can see why you think its weird.

But if you think it through, why is being allergic to “fiancé” weirder than the mania people have on here about the words “holibobs” and “hubs”.

I have lost count of the threads I have read on here about how much people hate these names: it’s beyond cliché. Its an irrational dislike, as is my dislike of the word “fiancé”. It’s subconscious and not something anyone could justify properly.

But everyone has their bugbears. I have several and this isn’t even the worst of mine but surely it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man to understand that some words just irrationally annoy people.

I used partner still when I was engaged. With people who were aware of who he was, I’d say his name. Now that I’m married I say husband for people who don’t know him and his name for those who do. 🤷‍♀️

No it’s normal. Would you rather she said betrothed or promised?

He’s not a boyfriend, he’s not a husband… he’s a fiancé

You can usually pick it up from context. A colleague talks about her husband Phil's love of golf and how much time it takes up, you reply oh Jeff doesn't play golf but he's always out on that bike of his. It's safe to assume Jeff is your partner not the bin man. Or you say something like oh my husband is like that, I say to him Jeff you spend more time on that golf course than you do at home. You have them introduced that your partner is Jeff and can just use his name thereafter.
I know most of my colleagues' spouses names , I've met a couple, but not most and no one has ever said to me hi I'm Susan my husband is called John , you just pick it up as they talk about them

Awful word. Ffi-ON-saaaay! 😖

I've always assumed that people who take umbrage at anyone with an extensive vocabulary and a love of language are just, well - let's just say they wouldn't win a round on Mastermind, or University Challenge, or even Blankety Blank 😆

Surely you told the people who were invited at some point, rather than “surprise!” on the morning of the ceremony, when they may have had other plans for the day.

Ha! A “yuppie word”, used in every Italian family in rural/ poor villages. Perfect example of the inverted snobbery people are referring to and even funnier because he was so wrong about a basic cooking instruction of a basic food staple being somehow pretentious. You must have had a good giggle at that one.

Yes and in the UK don’t you have to give notice, legally, so you were officially engaged for at least as long as that.

I think you might be overthinking it a bit 😂 If she’s engaged, fiancé is the correct word, and she probably just uses it naturally. I wouldn’t read it as showing off unless there’s something else going on.

This is the odd thing to me. The only time I might refer to my husband as that, is with people who don't know him or of him. So if I drop the car at the garage and they say pick it up at 5, I might say my husband will be picking it up, I'll be at work. Similarly a utility company recently caused some damage to our property and when they were trying to arrange a time to fix it they said are you available Tuesday and I said I'm not but my husband will be at home so that's fine. At work, with friends etc I just use his name. Eg what are you up to this weekend? Not much got some bits to do around the house, kids party Sunday and Barry is working Saturday so it's just me and Barry junior, we might walk to the beach.

She's right though, you were engaged to be married. Engaged just means you've agreed to get married and you are engaged to be married during the period after you have discussed and agreed upon the desire to marry and before you get married.

Or, as you would prefer, before you say some words in front of someone official and agree in front of others to live with a man you have sex with and may or may not have children with and plan to stay with forever.

I just started a new job and worry it's annoying to refer to "my husband" in conversation, but given they don't know who Derek is, I don't know what else to really say. You can't formally announce their name, can you?

There are some concepts that don’t exist as a single word in English where using foreign terms accurately captures something that would be far more laborious to explain in English, e.g. schadenfreude, to provide an example most people will know. There are many more.

Interestingly, it is thought that this is one of the reasons that speaking more than one language fluently as a child has been shown to raise IQ on average: it provides more clearly defined concepts in language for the brain to build connections between because different languages contain concepts that aren’t directly translatable clearly (although obviously that’s not the case with “fiancé”).

European languages share common heritage and have always influenced each other/ borrowed words from each other so although “fiancé” is of French origin it is now considered to be part of the English language itself. It’s not an unusual word that any English-only speaking person would not understand. And to be honest I don’t understand this weird attitude to people speaking foreign languages anyway and that it is somehow “pretentious”, especially when it comes to words for something invented in the other country being pronounced properly rather than with English phonetics imposed on them (espresso, chorizo, croissant etc!).

Mumsnet really brings out the strangest people, what an absolutely bizarre fixation. Harmless, but very, very weird.

When I was first married I had to use ‘my husband’ in almost every sentence. I must have annoyed so many people but fortunately the novelty soon wore off

Well nobody proposed or gave anyone a ring, nor did we tell people we decided to get married, which are the things that generally have to happen in order for everyone else to consider you "engaged" in the cultural sense, rather than simply two people engaged to be married.

You are asking if people refer to the thing they want to talk about by using the name of the thing they want to talk about?