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

[Sparklesbigtoe]

Do people still use the word fiancé to describe the person they’re engaged to on a regular basis (eg. every time they mention them to someone who doesn’t know their name they’ll say fiancé rather than partner or bf/gf)? Or is this becoming kind of outdated? There’s a woman at work who keeps saying ‘my fiancé and I this, my fiancé and I that, yesterday I said to my fiancé blah, blah’. It’s really starting to grate on me because she could easily say his name then start referring to him by it, just like everyone else does. It also struck me that other people I know who’ve been engaged recently carried on saying ‘partner’, or they might say fiancé once or twice but generally they use partner. I’m sure I’m BU to find it annoying but it feels like they’re trying to boast that someone’s asked them to marry them everytime I hear it!

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.

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 😆

Awful word. Ffi-ON-saaaay! 😖

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

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

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. 🤷‍♀️

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.

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

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’.

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

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

Excuse me, but you say “wanky”!

“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.

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.

Being engaged/married is nothing like a job situation, for most undertaking it they hope it will be a lifelong relationship. People take it seriously because it's important to them emotionally. Being engaged is, for some people, a stage on the road from casual to serious to engaged to married.

These days people are free to skip/shorten/change any part of the processes relating to marriage, and that's great. But they don't have a right to denigrate the process that other people feel is important for them. It isn't 'cringeworthy', it's just not something you understand or want yourself. Live and let live works best if you respect other people's views as equally valid.

I don’t disagree, generally. We shouldn’t descend into the Académie Française nonsense about language purity. English is glorious for its willingness to adopt foreign words and phrases. It’s all a matter of context and circumstance though.

(‘Schadenfraude’ does not convey anything that ‘gloat’ doesn’t.)

Eh? I'm not grasping your point here.

It's not the same concept, at all. The analogy would be that instead of saying fiance you said "feeny weeny" or something similar.

Hollybobs is an attempt to sound cutesy as a diminutive of holiday, as with hubs and husband. I don't care if people use those terms, but they are not the same as using straightforward Englsh.

Husband and fiance are straightforward terms, they are not replacements for the terms, they are the correct words. They are not diminutives, they're not pet names, they're not colloquialisms. They're just correct.

Very nicely put.

We are discussing the use of the word fiancé and that some PPs find it cringe worthy and pretentious.

I have never heard the term ‘wanky’ and it made me cringe.

I dislike "partner".

I call my husband my husband now, he was my fiancé between us making the decision to marry until our marriage ceremony and my boyfriend before that.

Obviously, to people we both know he was Simon at every stage in our relationship.

Oh no, someone is using a precise word!!!

Yes, and I pointed out that it's just as easy to use the correct word - husband, any time you like, anywhere you like.

Most people don't give it the tiniest moment of thought, any more than they would try to replace the word door with "hole in the wall I walk through into the house covered by wood held up by hinges"

Because husband is the correct word, people use it without thinking about it. They don't go out of their way to skip it, because that would be really strange and pointless.

It certainly does. Schadenfreude is a passive, internal feeling of malicious joy derived from witnessing another's misfortune, whereas gloating is far more active and often boastful and may be related to an action such as winning against a rival.

How wonderful it is that we have so many words we can choose from, including those from other languages, which offer so much nuance.

"My engagement status is on a need to know basis...and you don't need to know."

Even if you think that a fiancé is also a boyfriend (I don't think that's the case, really, I think they're different things), it's not spy work that needs to be kept top secret! 😂