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I know the Telegraph is reactionary but really…..

BBC newsreader Jane Hill is to \’marry\’ a woman cameraman
Jane Hill, the BBC newsreader, has accepted a \’marriage\’ proposal from her girlfriend, Sara, a television cameraman.

What\’s with the \’ \’ ?

We don\’t have or use the phrase \”to civil partner\” and marry and marriage are perfectly acceptable descriptions. Might not be the legal description but is the sort of language that would be commonly used.

Come on, \”marry\” and \”marriage\” is the way people coyly describe introducing their pedigree lab to another for the puppy making purposes.

14 thoughts on “I know the Telegraph is reactionary but really…..”

  1. Marry and marriage are used to describe the mating (perfectly good word with no porno implications) of animals by the hard of thinking. ” Marriage”, denotes a formal heterosexual union for the purpose of creating a stable relationship for procreation. We might not have a term,”to civil partner”, but maybe we need one to describe a formal same-sex relationship. After all , the main advantage of English in it’s many forms is it’s flexibility.

  2. I know that a number of people reject the idea that a civil partnership is marriage. One of my NZ friends and her boyfriend had a civil partnership rather than a wedding (despite being legally entitled to the wedding) where they made a general statement that they would not get married until anyone could get married, regardless of gender.

  3. I’m a supporter of civil partnerships, but it seems to me they are obviously different from marriages. I therefore don’t use the word “marriage”, but “civil partnership” to describe them. To use the word “marriage”, but then put inverted commas round it, is just crass!

    I’d go further than that and ask why this non-story is in the newspaper at all. It’s of the “dog-bites-man” variety and of no significance to anyone except the couple and their friends.

  4. “One of my NZ friends and her boyfriend had a civil partnership rather than a wedding (despite being legally entitled to the wedding) where they made a general statement that they would not get married until anyone could get married, regardless of gender.”

    Ha ha ha.

    Priceless.

  5. You’re wrong on this one, Tim. Marriage can no more be between two people of the same sex than I can be a grandmother.

    You can seek to give similar legal rights to two people of the same sex- hence civil partnerships. But it doesn’t make it a marriage. Just as much as I’d like to be a grandmother. The only way I could become one is if the law said I was one. As much as I admire the special relationship grandmothers have with their grandchildren; and even if I could show that I cared and loved a set of children roughly two generations younger than me, I ain’t ever going to be a grandmother. I might end up having a closer relationship with those children than their grandmother does, but that will never make me their grandmother.

  6. “the main advantage of English in it’s many forms is it’s flexibility”: though personally I’d say you’d pushed its flexibility too far there, grumps.

  7. For that matter, what’s with “woman cameraman”? It looks as odd and old-fashioned as the scare quotes on ‘marry’. I suppose we should be glad they didn’t describe Hill as “the plucky girl reporter”.

  8. Ugly use of language regardless of whether “to marry” is legally correct.

    What was wrong with “got engaged to”?

    And whereas terms such as “female doctor” are outdated “woman camerman” is just lazy

  9. Marriage can no more be between two people of the same sex than I can be a grandmother.

    Just as much as I’d like to be a grandmother. The only way I could become one is if the law said I was one.

    Marriage, despite the opposition of Christian fundamentalists, is defined in law, not in religious texts. Therefore, if the law says (and it currently doesn’t in the UK, although this is likely to change) that gays can get married, then they can.

    Grandmother is, however, a loose statement about reality. Many people who aren’t grannies are, however, so described – whether they are friendly local elderly ladies, happen to be grandad’s current bide-in etc.

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