Terms of endearment...

I've had a nickname since I was two years old...or perhaps even younger: Macaw. I was so christened by my father because, he said, "all I ever did was squawk and shit." Oddly, despite the ignominous origin, I don't mind being called Macaw. It beats being 'Kenny', anyway...I haven't been 'Kenny' since fourth grade and to be honest, that -y suffix makes me feel like a child every single time.

I got thinking about this after Rocketstar mentioned how much he detests songs with 'Baby' in the title. This post sent me scurrying to my iTunes library, of course. A search on 'Baby' yielded five matches (out of almost 700):

"Shoo Shoo Baby"--The Andrews Sisters

"So Not My Baby"--Josh Turner

"My Baby Loves Me Just The Way That I Am"--Martina McBride

"My Baby Loves A Bunch of Authors"--Moxy Fruvous

"Baby I'm Home"--Trace Adkins

Three country tunes, an old '40s swingtime standard, and rollicking Canadian folk. "Baby"'s everywhere. 

He's right: it's annoying. What's so endearing about being infantilized, anyway? Babies may be cute and all (until they squawk and shit)...but you don't really want to refer to the love of your life using that word, would you? Kind of creepy.

You want cloyingly cute? Fifteen years ago I was Kenbear. She was Cathybear (Kbear and Cbear for short, of course), and we sprinkled 'bear' liberally throughout our conversation. Seemed perfectly normal at the time, and I just rolled my eyes at all the people who were rolling their eyes at me. Now it just seems like a saccharine overdose, and points to how juvenile the relationship actually was.

I call Eva "love".  Not very creative as a term of endearment, but the thing is, nothing else seems right, somehow. I couldn’t use a word I’d used on previous girlfriends: that would be like cheating. And in any event, I've grown up enough now not to use things like 'bear' or, so help me, 'snuggums' or 'snooky-poo'. (Oh, barf.) For a very brief time she was 'dear', but that sounded in my mouth like I was her maiden aunt. 

 In the end I settled on “love”, and why not? It’s what I do to her and what she is to me.

"Darling" derives from OE 'deorling', "little dear"--and shows we've been diminishing love with our words for a very long while. A 'little dear', as far as I'm concerned, is a child (and not just any child, either: a colicky infant is most certainly not a little dear). And anyway, definitely not a word for your adult partner (unless maybe you've got a diaper fetish or something). 

I'll admit, I've got something of an emotional blind spot.  Example: "cute."

Oh, isn't that cute?

What, that little tiny jacket?

Yes! It's so cute!

(Yawn)

"Cute", so far as I've been able to determine, is girlspeak for "small". It's not universal (a little turdlet in the toilet is never cute. Well, almost never)...but anything tiny that could concievably be in the same room as a baby probably qualifies. Or something animal. Aww, look at the little tiger cub, she's so cute. Meanwhile, I'm thinking where's Mommy, and am I about to be eviscerated?

"Honey"'s another weird one, when you stop to think about it. Sure, it's sweet, and it gets points for lasting damn near forever. But it's sticky as hell, which is the last thing you want in a life partner. Plus it comes from bees, which sting.

(Okay, I'm reaching.)

"Baby", though, is just plain icky as a term of endearment. What amazes me is how many women (good feminists, all) don't seem to be mind being shrunk. Who beg for it..."I'm your baby". Yuck.