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I feel the caller who asked about the meaning of the term "sister-in-law" and just how far it extends is letting it cover a little too much ground. For the sake of simplicity, I'll explain "brother-in-law" as I understand it and you can use your own intelligence to derive the distaff equivalent:
(1) The husband of my sister is my brother-in-law.
(2) The brother of my wife is also my brother-in-law.
These two combined mean that if man A is man B's brother-in-law, man B is also man A's brother-in-law; i.e., the relationship and the term that describes it are reciprocal.
And yes, I realize that (1) and (2), while using the same term, do not describe someone who stands in the same relationship to me. Mox nix. "Uncle" is both the brother of my parent and the husband of my parent's sister, but we use a single term for that. We also use "cousin" to refer to both a male or female relative, and "brother" to describe a male sibling who can be either older than us or younger. English uses a single term for such relationships while other languages find it necessary to distinguish them.
(3) However, the brother of my sibling's spouse is not my brother-in-law (which is the male counterpart of what the caller was describing). Neither is the husband of my spouse's sibling. In each case, this person might be thought of as my brother-in-law-in-law, or "brother-in-law-squared". (I've also heard "brother-out-law" for situations like this.)
As for what you say when you notice someone's fly is open, I once knew someone who would simply start counting slowly, "one...two...three...." When you finally asked him what he was up to, he'd say he was counting the horses that were getting out of the barn because the door was left open.
Ron, I won't agree or disagree because there are meanings which are technically correct and meanings which are correct because of extremely widespread usage. What I do believe is that it looks to me like there is a contradiction in the rules you laid out.
First: "The husband of my parent's sister." I have long understood that this man is not technically my uncle but, after all, he is married to my aunt so there is a strong argument that he is my uncle. Of course every man is this position is called uncle.
Compare: "The husband of my spouse's sister." I could say exactly the same thing about this man being my brother-in-law as I said about the previous man being my uncle. After all he is married to my sister-in-law.
Yet, you say that "the husband of my parent's sister" is, in fact, technically my uncle but you say that "the husband of my spouse's sister" is not, in fact, technically my brother-in-law. I can go either way but I believe what you described it is a contradiction.
Here is an example. My parents are male-A and female-A. My mother has a married sister, female-B whose husband is male-B. According to your descriptions, male-B is, in fact, my uncle (the husband of my parent's sister) but he is, in fact, not my father's brother-in-law. (the husband of his spouse's sibling) That doesn't seem right.
I hope this is not too hard to follow. I had to read it about five times to understand it myself.
The book Sinatra and the Jack Pack at couple places refers to president Nixon as son-in-law of president Eisenhower. That's obviously based on the marriage of Ike's grandson and Nixon's daughter.
If there exists the term extreme in-law , that must be where it's for!
On the other hand, they are definitely in-laws, for being that close to the spouses. Just not father and son.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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