Give me a kiss, Sugar Lips!

[Paul Whybrow]

Endearments...what terms of affection do your characters use?

I’m about to return to writing two novellas which I abandoned last year, to create audiobooks of my Cornish Detective series. In one of them, a hedge witch is falling for the frail charms of a retired diplomat who is haunted by the spirit of his wife who died in a voodoo fertility ritual when they were stationed in Haiti. What would they call one another in intimate moments? Because of their maturity, Dearest and Darling spring to mind.

The lovers in the other story are very different—a traumatised cavalry officer coming to terms with peace after fighting in the American Civil War—and a half-mulatto freed slave who is working as a sharecropper on his sister’s plantation. He fought for the Union Army, so she might call him Blue from the colour of his uniform. Or, maybe Horse...though that’s potentially rude! She’s a skilled watercolourist, so I might have him call her Paint or Brush.

Such sweet nothings make characters realistic—after all, the reader is looking over our shoulder as we pen love scenes.

There are scores of appellations indicating love:

Food-based: Sweetie Pie, Honey Bun, Sugar.

Traditional: Hubby, Wifey.

Timeless: Darling, Love, Lover, Sweetheart, Baby, Angel, Doll, Dearest.

Worldwide: Petit Choux (little cabbage) - France

Chuchuzinho (little pumpkin) – Brazil

Tamago gata no kao (egg with eyes) – Japan

Terron de azucar (lump of sugar) – Spain

Buah hatiku (fruit of my heart) – Indonesia

Ma puce (my flea) – France

Ghazal (gazelle) – Arabic

Chang noi (little elephant) – Thailand

Golubushka (dove) – Russia

When I lived in the USA ‘Boo’ was a common way of expressing love. In the 21st-century, ‘Bae’ is the short version of saying Baby or Babe.

A lover once called me Beloved, which I liked.

What do your fictional loving partners call one another?

 

[Hannah F]

There was a girl I taught in a school for pupils expelled from other schools (all of the posh variety). She was affectionately known by her friends as BJ !!!! She liked it. I referred to her by the name on my attendance register!

 

[Steve C]

Chang noi (little elephant) – Thailand

This is a new one on me. I'll try it out on my wife later. If she hits me you owe me a beer, okay?

 

[KateESal]

Here in Spain, the most popular are basically the same as in English, but translated:

corazon = heart (sweetheart, essentially)
mi amor = my love
cariño = darling

Isn't cariad Welsh for darling? I've always thought that was rather lovely, said in a Welsh lilt

I like that in Cornwall, people are "my lover" or "lover" rather than "luv"...something more poetic about it, somehow...

 

[Steve C]

My Thai wife has always called me darling. When we first came to this village some of the kids picked up on it and presumed it was my name. For quite some time they would come up to me to practice the only English they had.

'Darling, where you come from?' was the usual question. On learning what it meant they would have a good giggle and point at me while shouting 'Darling, darling. You want marry my sister?' and run away.
Fortunately, the joke died out and now I am known as Loong Sa Teeve = Uncle Steve

 

[Hannah F]

Irish: Mo Ghra (with a fada on the a) = my love.
Mo chuisle = my pulse
Mo stor (fada on the o) = my darling.

 

[Steve C]

In my younger days I found a little flattery worked wonders. "Hi Gorgeous' went down well