We need a common word for “the parents of your son-in-law or daughter-in-law.” Although English has the word affines, it’s rarely used outside of such fields as anthropology or psychiatry. Other languages have more commonly used terms for “your child’s in-laws,” such as Yiddish machatunim or machetunim, and Spanish consuegros. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Terms for “Your Child’s In-Laws””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello.
Hi, who’s this?
Marion Agnew.
Hi, Marion. Where are you calling from?
I’m calling from Richmond, Virginia.
Well, welcome to the show.
I have always had a problem ever since I became a family member of my son’s family, and that is, what do I call the mother of my daughter-in-law?
I don’t think there’s a word in English that can name the mother of your daughter-in-law.
You mean a word that expresses the relationship rather than the name of the person?
If I said, if we were, you know, in a social situation, I would say I would like you to meet Joan, who is the mother of my daughter-in-law.
Okay, I would like to have one word that says she’s a member of my family, she’s a friend.
But in other languages, I understand they do have a name for that person.
Yes, indeed. The ones that you hear about most often are from Spanish and Yiddish, I think.
Oh, really?
Yeah. Consuegros is a term for those folks, those other folks.
Consuegros, sure.
Yeah, you’ve heard that one?
Yeah.
Right. And that actually goes back to a Latin term that means the very same thing.
And then in Yiddish, there’s makatunum. Have you heard that one?
And that’s for the group of the in-laws altogether, right?
It’s often for the pair, but yeah, the extended family, it can refer to that.
But it’s the mother and father of your child’s spouse.
Yes.
The people you share grandchildren with, if you have grandchildren.
There are words in English for this, but they’re just not widely used, and they’re a little jargony.
Like co-affine, C-O-A-F-F-I-N-E.
But they appear in family therapy texts, and it’s not the kind of thing that you’d write on the front of a holiday card.
Yeah, what do you think about that one, Marion?
I think it’s a little complicated.
Co-in-law? What about co-in-law?
But people won’t understand you, right, if you say, oh, she’s my co-in-law.
I don’t think so. It sounds a little industrial to me.
Yeah, and if you lose the hyphen, then it’s co-in-law, and that’s weird.
Co-mother-in-law or parent-in-law?
I think I’m going to have to settle for good friend.
There we go.
Good friend.
Perfect, yeah.
That works.
Yeah, well, I just, I suspected there wasn’t a word in English.
Since English is such an agglomeration of so many other languages, you’d think that by now we would have come up with something.
You’re exactly right.
It’s interesting that we’re looking to these sort of romance languages and the older languages for the family togetherness words.
That’s a very good point.
There are various words in some other languages, like what, yeah, Tagalog and Korean, Chinese, Polish, German.
I believe that the other mother-in-law of your grandchildren, or the other grandmother of your grandchildren is die Gegensweiger Mutter.
German.
My pronunciation is terrible.
Die Gegensweiger Mutter.
So go ahead and use that one.
It’s one word.
Well, other mother?
Yeah.
I don’t know.
I think I’ll settle for friend.
That’s good, yeah.
Okay.
Just add her.
Don’t explain it.
Okay, thank you very much.
Allow the mystery to remain.
It’s an issue anyway.
So you’re not taken by consuegro, which you pronounce beautifully.
Consuegro?
Mm—
I kind of like that, but that would only appeal to people who speak Spanish.
That’s the thing.
You still have to explain it every time.
You still have to explain.
Yeah.
We’ll check in in another hundred years and see if English has acquired something new, all right?
Well, maybe somebody out there in your audience will come up with a word.
Why don’t you just throw it upon the great out there?
Yeah, but we’d still have the problem just with the Spanish word.
We’d still have to teach it to everyone and have to explain it.
It would take a very long time to get it adopted.
Well, if it is a good word, it will be an immediate hit.
Oh, I see. All right.
That’s just the way things work.
That is bounteous optimism, Marion.
Okay.
Thank you so much for your call today.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
If you’ve got a word for your child’s in-laws, that is, the parents of the person that your child married, if you’ve got a word for that, one word, we’d love to hear it.
Email it to words@waywordradio.org or start the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
