"A and B have set up this venture to support their son C. On most Saturdays in the summer you will find their tent parked on our lawn, and B and son D will be cooking up some fries. C and his life assistant Sue will be supervising and enjoying hobnobbing with the customers."

As terms for the "Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters" or "Person of an Appropriate Sex Sharing Living Quarters" I've seen "life partner," partner, mate, spouse, companion, girlfriend, significant other, lover, paramour, cohabitor, conjoint, co-vivant, "woman in my life," and even "other half," but never "life assistant." I wonder if it was supposed to be funny?

[ 25 July 2007: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

I also noted that A and B set up the venture to "support" their son, C, so I was imagining he might need the "support" because he had special, and potentially costly, needs. I also note that C doesn't do any of the cooking, he just watches and hobnobs with the customers.

[ 25 July 2007: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

[ 25 July 2007: Message edited by: oldgoat ]

Actually, that could be kind of interesting. Talk about a conversation stopper, though!

"Hey, long time no see! How long has it been? Have you met my paramour, Michelle?"

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Wilf, you've heard of people referring to their committed partner as "my paramour"??

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dictionary. com describes comprodor as:

"An intermediary; a go-between.
A native-born agent in China and certain other Asian countries formerly employed by a foreign business to serve as a collaborator or intermediary in commercial transactions. "

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:

No, but I've heard it used by others, as a joke -- "he was there with his new paramour."

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Dictionary.com

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par·a·mour (pār'ə-mŏŏr') Pronunciation Key
n. A lover, especially one in an adulterous relationship.

[Middle English, from par amour, by way of love, passionately, from Anglo-Norman : par, by (from Latin per; see per1 in Indo-European roots) + amour, love (from Latin amor, from amāre, to love).]

c.1300, noun use of adv. phrase par amour (c.1300) "passionately, with strong love or desire," from Anglo-Fr. par amour, from acc. of amor "love." Originally a term for Christ (by women) or the Virgin Mary (by men), it came to mean "darling, sweetheart" (c.1350) and "mistress, concubine, clandestine lover" (c.1386).

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1. paramour - a woman's lover:
a)fancy man
b)lover - a significant other to whom you are not related by marriage

2. paramour - a woman who cohabits with an important man:

concubine, courtesan, doxy, odalisque
kept woman, mistress, fancy woman - an adulterous woman; a woman who has an ongoing extramarital sexual relationship with a man.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
"Doxy" and "odalisque" are new words to me. They're both actually kind of nice-sounding.

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Those older men and women exercising structural and moral authority (Paterson, 1966), often called collectively the Establishment, have been alarmed by psychedelics for rather less than five years. Their attitude might be described in the terms Aneurin Bevan used for an old man approaching a young bride: "... fascinated, sluggish, and apprehensive." The impetuous young, however, always at the heart of any anti-establishment movement, rush in with all the rash ardor of Romeo and Juliet. Medical men, though less worried about morals or legality, are properly concerned with the health of the young lovers, and have been debating, not without acrimony, whether the entrancing psychedelic bride is a delicious and sexy houri or a poxy doxy.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Concubine, not so much.

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Originally posted by oldgoat:
Yeah, my understanding of the term "life assistant" is someone who assists people with paralysis or other mobility issues.

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