Has political correctness actually gone mad?

OED definition:

wifie
(ˈwaɪfɪ)
Also wifey, wify.
[f. wife n. + -ie, -y 6.]
​
Little wife: used as a term of endearment for a wife.

1786 Burns Poems, chiefly in Scottish Dial. 126 His clean hearth-stone, his thrifty Wifie's smile. 1819 Keats Let. 18 Sept. (1931) II. 439, I intend to write a letter to you[r] Wifie. 1825 Jamieson, Wiffie, a diminutive from wife; generally expressive of smallness of size, but sometimes merely a fondling term, S. wifie. [The accompanying quot. for wiffie is dubious.] 1841 Tupper Twins vi, Turn bachelor again‥, leave wifey at home. 1862 E. B. Ramsay Remin. i. i. 13 Whaur's the auld wifie? 1888 Mrs. H. Ward R. Elsmere xix, I know you have worries of your own, wifie.
 
Wibble said:
Although the inafantising of the word wife is pretty sexist and demeaning in of itself even if the actually definition was other than it is..
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Just to be clear, you do feel exactly the same about the use of the word hubby, right?
 
To be fair Wibbs, I use the term occasionally interchangeable with sweetie or honey or similar usually on things like present tags, valentine or birthday cards etc. It's not a term I've ever considered to be sexist or demeaning and looks like something that maybe belonged in the sort of 1950s like the Harry Enfield type "little woman" skits, "so easy even your wifey can do it" type of bollocks.

It's not a term I'd use when referring to my wife externally as it does sound a bit patronising in the same way "'er indoors" or "the missus" might but between the two of us it's just an affectionate pet name rather than something we would deem to be insulting.
 
Bury Red said:
To be fair Wibbs, I use the term occasionally interchangeable with sweetie or honey or similar usually on things like present tags, valentine or birthday cards etc. It's not a term I've ever considered to be sexist or demeaning and looks like something that maybe belonged in the sort of 1950s like the Harry Enfield type "little woman" skits, "so easy even your wifey can do it" type of bollocks.

It's not a term I'd use when referring to my wife externally as it does sound a bit patronising in the same way "'er indoors" or "the missus" might but between the two of us it's just an affectionate pet name rather than something we would deem to be insulting.
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Ah here. I won’t miss wifey but don’t take that one away from us, dammit!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ah here. I won’t miss wifey but don’t take that one away from us, dammit!
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I do use it jokingly when posting on here but if I were to use it within her earshot in public I'd be likely to get a crack around my own ear as I know it's a term she hates. Sometimes which words like that their acceptability can have regional and age connotations as well. I know when I worked on the markets up north in my youth everyone referred to any woman around your age or much older as "luv" or occasionally "duck" for the real old ones but if you tried that down south you'd get a mouthful at least whereas down here they use the term "hun" instead which sends my wife right up the pole and doesn't seem right to me as I am assuming it's a shortening of honey which seems like a weird way to refer to a stranger, though no weirder than love or mate I suppose.

Context and intent are everything really as dictionary definitions change over time and can mean something completely different or another age group or culture. Just look at the way the Pakistani cricket team are referred to in Australia and New Zealand and try to imagine the commentators in the UK using the same word.
 
Bury Red said:
I do use it jokingly when posting on here but if I were to use it within her earshot in public I'd be likely to get a crack around my own ear as I know it's a term she hates. Sometimes which words like that their acceptability can have regional and age connotations as well. I know when I worked on the markets up north in my youth everyone referred to any woman around your age or much older as "luv" or occasionally "duck" for the real old ones but if you tried that down south you'd get a mouthful at least whereas down here they use the term "hun" instead which sends my wife right up the pole and doesn't seem right to me as I am assuming it's a shortening of honey which seems like a weird way to refer to a stranger, though no weirder than love or mate I suppose.

Context and intent are everything really as dictionary definitions change over time and can mean something completely different or another age group or culture. Just look at the way the Pakistani cricket team are referred to in Australia and New Zealand and try to imagine the commentators in the UK using the same word.
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There's parts of Yorkshire where blokes call other blokes luv, with no untoward intent at all.

Yeah, in Lancashire it's common to call someone of the other sex luv, whether older or younger. It's just friendly and partly intended to disarm, you would never call someone you were seriously chatting up luv, for instance, or use it in formal situation, but buying a paper for instance, or being sold a paper, it's perfectly normal and not intended as an insult in any way. If people take it as an insult they should educate themselves a bit more.
 
711 said:
There's parts of Yorkshire where blokes call other blokes luv, with no untoward intent at all.

Yeah, in Lancashire it's common to call someone of the other sex luv, whether older or younger. It's just friendly and partly intended to disarm, you would never call someone you were seriously chatting up luv, for instance, or use it in formal situation, but buying a paper for instance, or being sold a paper, it's perfectly normal and not intended as an insult in any way. If people take it as an insult they should educate themselves a bit more.
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Yeah, I never got the Yorkshire concept of calling other blokes luv, that one seemed really weird to me but I guess when it's become an incredibly commonplace greeting it just trips off the tongue, a bit like the scousers and "la".
 
hobbers said:
Just to be clear, you do feel exactly the same about the use of the word hubby, right?
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I wouldn't use it but the term hubby doesn't infantise anyone and it doesn't have a derogatory dictiobary definition.
 
Wibble said:
I wouldn't use it but the term hubby doesn't infantise anyone and it doesn't have a derogatory dictiobary definition.
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But it infantises the word. The only difference is the assumed motive for infantising the word.
 
Wibble said:
I wouldn't use it but the term hubby doesn't infantise anyone and it doesn't have a derogatory dictiobary definition.
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There is a genuine split here. If I called Mrs Jip wifey or she called me hubby, it would be an affectionate term, not that we use either. Because of her Mauritian roots it tends to be French platitudes like beb or chou, and with all due respect @Wibble in my personal experience, wifey has never been a demeaning term to us, nor hubby. I guess cultural differences can be cavernous.
 
Jippy said:
There is a genuine split here. If I called Mrs Jip wifey or she called me hubby, it would be an affectionate term, not that we use either. Because of her Mauritian roots it tends to be French platitudes like beb or chou, and with all due respect @Wibble in my personal experience, wifey has never been a demeaning term to us, nor hubby. I guess cultural differences can be cavernous.
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I grew up in the North and it wasn't a widely used term there. Far more a Southern term (although also apparently a Scottish term with a somewhat different but also negative meaning) but it has always been a term similar to "her indoors" or even more like "little woman at home". It's dictionary definition even says it is derogatory https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wifey

Lots of terms are used without intent but shouldn't be used as they perpetuate stereotypes or confirms prejudice/discrimination. "The missus", which I have used on here but now try to avoid, implies ownership and we own pets not women. I'm sure there are other terms I use I shouldn't out of habit and I'm trying to stop. Just because people are unaware of it's meaning doesn't make it ok to use. We didn't give Suarez a break for using racists language because he said it wasn't insulting where he came from and we shouldn't do the same for sexist language.

We seem to have got a much better handle on not casually using racist language than we do on not using sexist language.
 
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Bury Red said:
Just look at the way the Pakistani cricket team are referred to in Australia and New Zealand and try to imagine the commentators in the UK using the same word.
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It is because Aussies are so good at racial sensitivity ;)
 
Wibble said:
I grew up in the North and it wasn't a widely used term there. Far more a Southern term (although also apparently a Scottish term with a somewhat different but also negative meaning) but it has always been a term similar to "her indoors" or even more like "little woman at home". It's dictionary definition even says it is derogatory https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wifey

Lots of terms are used without intent but shouldn't be used as they perpetuate stereotypes or confirms prejudice/discrimination. "The missus", which I have used on here but now try to avoid, implies ownership and we own pets not women. I'm sure there are other terms I use I shouldn't out of habit and I'm trying to stop. Just because people are unaware of it's meaning doesn't make it ok to use. We didn't give Suarez a break for using racists language because he said it wasn't insulting where he came from and we shouldn't do the same for sexist language.

We seem to have got a much better handle on not casually using racist language than we do on not using sexist language.
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Defo agree with that. I hadn't really given it much thought, but I routinely use 'the missus' as a term, which maybe isn't the best.
 
Wibble said:
I grew up in the North and it wasn't a widely used term there. Far more a Southern term (although also apparently a Scottish term with a somewhat different but also negative meaning) but it has always been a term similar to "her indoors" or even more like "little woman at home". It's dictionary definition even says it is derogatory https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wifey

Lots of terms are used without intent but shouldn't be used as they perpetuate stereotypes or confirms prejudice/discrimination. "The missus", which I have used on here but now try to avoid, implies ownership and we own pets not women. I'm sure there are other terms I use I shouldn't out of habit and I'm trying to stop. Just because people are unaware of it's meaning doesn't make it ok to use. We didn't give Suarez a break for using racists language because he said it wasn't insulting where he came from and we shouldn't do the same for sexist language.

We seem to have got a much better handle on not casually using racist language than we do on not using sexist language.
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Usually agree with you in these types of threads but think you’re wide of the mark here.

Agree with you’re last paragraph though
 
My first few weeks at Bristol Uni were a bit disconcerting due to the language used by the locals.
Buying a paper or a pack of smokes from a newsagents and the lady behind the till would say "Alroight my lover" as a greeting (can't adequately spell that out in a proper Bristolian accent).
And no, it wasn't because I was actually her lover before anyone asks :)

Can't understand why people are getting their knickers in a twist about wifey either. Or 'missus' for that matter.
 
It's a private matter between partners.
Due to growing up with "kjærring" being a replacement for "kjære" I started out using that, she doesn't approve so I try my best to cut it out when speaking to or around her.
She has no problem with any other words I use.

This is the sort of thing that matters in context of the partnership, not in the dictionary.
 
Wibble said:
No it doesn't.
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People “infantised” women and implied ownership using the word wifey. But they also infantised and implied ownership of women using the word wife. The terminology isn’t the issue here, it’s the discrimation against women which is. The vast majority of terms relating to women, be it anatomy or pronouns have been used in derogatory ways. Clearly denigrating words based solely on past usage by some is not the way to go, but by looking at the context with which the word is used you can assess whether it is belittling or not.
 
Knew the DM readers would be pleased...

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