QotD: Back where I'm from...

Yes, indeed, Jack. That was the one I couldn't think of as composing the post. I knew there was something bigger out there, but it wouldn't. It did, eventually as I was going about my life one day, and I think I even dreamed I updated the post to that effect. But you apparently beat me to it. ;-)

Partner - I think that gets bandied about without any real understanding of what it means to be in partnership, more a "grown up" attempt to avoid using "girlfriend" or "boyfriend". Perhaps a little more "civilised" than the other possibilities, but still, not quite right in its ambiguity. I don't use it either, except to refer to the man my sister has lived with for several years and has a child with (because that is a mouthful), though that may be more due to lack of need than anything else.

I know I got a few blank stares when I visited the company offices in San Francisco, but I can't think of anything that was particularly puzzling. I do recall, however, a former flat-mate, as feisty a Frenchwoman as has ever existed, struggling to come to grips with the words myself and my other flatmate used without forethought. Wonky was rather amusing, as were a few other British-isms we'd unwittingly adopted.