name order poll

[jinian]

Disclaimer: Obviously not all couples consist of a woman and a man. If you have never referred to a couple that does, or one that is legally married, or one that shares a last name, just don't check those boxes. I am not getting into higher-order relationships, as the combinatorics are prohibitive.

The stuff I'm really interested in here is the scansion and phonology. I think we all do this name arrangement subconsciously most of the time, and that is cool, so if you can figure out what your brain is doing I want to know about it.

[Poll #1017585]

Comments

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Other: "The one whose name I can remember, and the other one"; "My friend, and the person my friend lives with of indeterminate relationship status because either I haven't been told what the relationship is, or I was told and I've since forgotten"; "X and Y of a couple when they routinely refer to themselves, or are commonly known as, 'X and Y' in that order" (e.g. I can't think of any that I know of currently offhand, but I can imagine, say, "Lisa and Laurie" or "Bob and Gina", with no preference to who is named first on my part).

... as an example, I'm trying to think of examples and failing completely. Wooyah.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

True, routine reference is a definite influence. Your others fall under "My Friend and The Other One", you're just being cute/persnickety. :)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I think I was mostly being glutened/tired. :)

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I have personal nickname structures (similar to something my family did growing up), like, I called Jake's friend and her guy "The Amandas" last night, sort of grouping them as a pair by the person I know better or the person whose name occurred to me first. Or on bb we called people and their off-bb partners "[bbid] and Mr. [bbid]" or (even if they were just some kind of more casual dating situation, not necessarily A Life Partner).

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The stuff I'm really interested in here is the scansion and phonology. I think we all do this name arrangement subconsciously most of the time, and that is cool, so if you can figure out what your brain is doing I want to know about it.

I re-read this bit. I don't think I can tease this apart.

"Wim and Kylee" sounds better to me than "Kylee and Wim" and I guess I do put Wim first if you are both at something. This is an 'and' thing I guess, that I want the consonant before the 'and'?

"Paul and David" I would probably say, but "David and Paul" probably sounds better.

"Jake and Helene" but "Helene and Jake" sounds awful (en en mumble)

"Mike and Davie" sounds better?
"Sue and Elias" defintely sounds better (the other way has too many s's in a row)
"Lili and George" (goes faster than the other way?)
"Doug and Layna" 'Doug' goes better with the and?
"Sara and Sasha" I think either way is kind of s s s s

All of these are the one I'm closer to first.

So I don't know. I guess I have a auditory preference for being careful with what goes before 'and', but it's overridden by the social construction of the relationship relative to me.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I re-read this bit. I don't think I can tease this apart.

I mean, I don't think I can tease 'social connection' apart from 'sound', though I tried. It seems more about dealing with the 'and' than the stress on the words. All of my examples except my parents though ave two syllables in the second part so maybe I am using that too? (That's what you mean, right, having two syllables on the second word so we can stress the second last one?)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Not just having two syallables, but having the stress fall where English speakers want to put it. If the second name were Jesús, all bets would be off. But yeah, that's the right idea. Thanks for the analysis.

[kitty-scarboro.livejournal.com]

my sister combined them and gave us a J-lo name of Sara-sha.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

:) Someone reads friend-of-friends :)

Thank you for not hassling me about leaving off your 'h' (sorry!).

I was going to introduce you to Missy Kylee but I think you met when you were last up here!

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

I typically use "friend first then other" or "person I've known longest first then the other cuz they're both friends just not the same length of time". In the cases where I've met the couple at the same time, I tend to say whatever everyone else uses, which is usually Man/Woman.

I rarely use "Mr. and Mrs. Anything". And I usually only put The Lastnames if I'm trying to include offspring/extended family.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how to read "Woman and Man" and "Man and Woman". You mean, literally those words, or [Man] and [Woman]? If The latter, then it mostly depends on my relationship with the people, or their relative applicability to the subject at hand, with a side dish of scansion and a smidge of trying to alternate a little. If the former, uh, I'm not sure.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

If it were the words Man and Woman, how would anyone know who you meant?

Alternation! Hellsparking?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

"Woman and Man" as in reference to inspecific people, maybe? I often have a hard time seeing what people obviously mean. What they could possibly mean gets all mixed up with it.

I'm afraid I don't know anything about Hellspark.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that happens to me too. Maybe I could actually try to allow for it in others. Sorry.

I wonder whether you would like Hellspark. The plot resolution is maybe overly tidy, but it's also SF based on language with good writing and good aliens. I love it (and have two copies, so it's borrowable should it sound interesting).

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Definitely one I know first. There are friends of papersky's and mine where I refer to the one I know less well as "X's Y" to distiguish from other people named Y I know better and talk about more, while papersky will refer to the X in question as "Y's X" on the same grounds.

Whether I'm liable to use firstname and lastname depends on how many other people I know with that name who need disambiguating; of the several people I know with the same first name as my sister, for example, who is my default person with that first name, the three others I talk about most often tend to be referred to as "X [lastname]", "Y's X", and "X from Toronto". There's really no sensible underlying schema there at all. [ This is referring to them vocally; written, one of them has a different spelling so it's unambiguous to just refer to her as X. ]

[kiya]

Some combination of "If single-syllable name, then single-syllable name first"; "If closer relationship with one party, closer relationship first"; and "Whichever one I grab out of the brainstack first first, then the other one".

A lot of my encoupled friends are single-syllable people with two-syllable people. The one single-syllabled couple I know, generally the woman's name comes first, which I put down to vowel quality.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

I can think of a few examples of couples that are commonly known as "X and Y" in that order, and sometimes I've noticed myself switching from my natural order to the common order. (Carol and Ulysses; Paul and Julie. Both couples have been together for so long that their pair of names is almost a portmanteau word.)

If one name ends in "uh" (Sarah, Julia, Donna), that name is last. I find it hard to say "-a and".

[jinian.livejournal.com]

And of course I completely forgot the one that made me think of it: Alphabetical order.

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

other="random" ie which ever pops into my head first, which will probably depend on the context of the conversation.

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

If I know one of them significantly better than the other I will say that person's name first (hence my checking the "My Friend and the Other One" ticky box.

If I feel that I know them both well and about the same amount, it alternates. Sometimes I say "Wim and Kylee" and sometimes I say "Kylee and Wim" and, at the moment, I'm not sure what it is that has me shifting it around. I shall now start paying attention to that and see what I learn.

[kaneda-khan.livejournal.com]

Several women I've known have become the social director for their couple, and they tend to come first as people realize that's who you need to talk to (if you want either or both of them to show up). But "1-syllable and 2-syllables" in particular seems euphoniously natural enough to trump everything short of consciously refusing to use it each time; "Ky and William" would be just as automatic if that's what you went by.

[firecat]

I tend to use the following in order of applicability:

1. whatever the couple prefers. my parents want me to address them as dr and mrs man lastname in formal situations so that's what i do, although i hate the form in general.

2. my friend and the other one (or "the one i know better and the one i know less well")

3. something idiosyncratic to that couple

4. something fairly random. scansion and phonology don't seem to matter much to me in this case.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

Fewer syllables and more syllables. In general there's a tendency for people to put the easiest words earliest in the sentence.

Hm, interesting.

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

For family couples, I think it's "person most closely related to me" first; my mother's sisters and brother all come before their respective spouses, as do my cousins. On the rare occasion when I refer to my parents by their first names, my father comes first ("Bill and Cindy"), but I think that's because I have a slight preference for an accent on the penult (which is probably due to too much Latin).

For non-family, I almost always put "person longest known" first, regardless of scansion or phonology. If I've known the couple the same length of time, I go for the accent on the penult and not putting names ending in -a before "and"; thus, my parents-in-law are "David and Linda", not "Linda and David".

I loathe and detest "Mr. and Mrs. Man Lastname" and have to be restrained from writing "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS" on mail addressed this way and sending it back.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much always "My Friend and The Other One", or at least "the one who was my friend first then the one who's become my friend since".

I also expect people referring to me & the boy to use "Richard & H-L" and get rather confused at "H-L & Richard" - even though this would make sense to the majority of my online friends for whom I am the "real" person!