Poly-what?

kw: relationships

I've been under the weather, meaning under the covers, for a couple of days. Just began to feel better. So I check my email backlog, and find that a friend is bragging about being "in a polyamorous relationship." I'd heard the term, but had to look it up. The older term for this is "group marriage", though the "marriage" part is rather flexible, more like "group of friends with benefits." I wonder how long it will take him to get tired of it. The "benefits" may be fun, but there is inevitably a ton of drama queen stuff that goes on, no matter how well-meaning everyone is. They don't last.

Back to line one. "Under the weather" indeed! I ran the phrase through the Google Ngrams analytical tool. Give it a try. I found that "under the weather" dates me. It was used in print mostly prior to 1960, with a peak before 1940. Usage since 1960 runs steady at about half the peak rate. Passing in the term "polyamorous", I find it was coined in 1966, vanished after 1975 (along with most sixties-era group "arrangements"), then burst back into steadily increasing use since 1991.

Myself, I've been monogamous since 1975.