Words for Someone More than an Acquaintance, Not Quite a Friend

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Sarah calling from Toms River, New Jersey.

Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the program. What’s up?

Thanks. I’m calling because I wanted to know if there’s a word between a friend and an acquaintance.

So let’s say a former coworker or your kid’s friend’s parents, someone that you might stop and talk to in the grocery store, but they’re not quite a friend.

Oh, what a question. So you’re then describing that encounter later, say, to a spouse or someone else.

And you’re saying, I ran into a blank. You’re trying to fill that blank.

Right. So I made up my own word. I started calling them friendlies.

Oh, I like that. That works.

Everyone seems to realize what I’m saying.

Yeah, I ran into a friendly. Oh, that’s so nice, though, because that’s got good connotations.

Right.

Yeah, I like that a lot. I think it’s better than frequentance or something.

You know, something like that.

I saw my friendly acquaintance.

It just sounds very clunky.

Some people use the word frenger, meaning friend plus stranger.

There was even a Danish alternative rock band called Mew, M-E-W, that had an album called Fregers, colon, not quite friends, but not quite strangers.

I like friendlies a lot.

I’ve always wanted a word for this myself, and I think that one fits perfectly.

Yeah, because colleague’s not right, and buddy and bud don’t really work.

Pile and mate are a little, I don’t know, they’ve got layers that don’t really fit.

Yeah, the only other thing that I can think about would be maybe anatope.

I’m thinking about the word.

Well, I just made that up, and I think I like friendly better.

But I was thinking about the term anatopism, which refers to when you see somebody totally out of context.

You know, you see the pediatrician at the grocery store and you have this moment of like, wait, you’re out of context.

And that’s called anatopism from two Greek words that mean, you know, not in that place.

But anatope doesn’t work as well as friendlies.

I think this is a winner, Sarah.

I can’t improve on that.

Let me toss one more at you, Sarah and Martha.

What about the Mexican-Spanish cuate?

C-U-A-T-E.

It’s kind of like Buddy and Pal, but it’s informal.

Cuate.

I mean, are we going to adopt that word in English?

I don’t know, but does it?

Maybe it has the connotations we want.

Sounds good.

The best thing is we have a radio show heard coast to coast and people will jump in.

Because they love to come up with words for concepts.

Okay.

Sounds good.

See if you can be friendly.

I don’t know.

Thanks for your call.

And keep being friendly out there.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Sarah.