You don't need to care about the NYT crossword to be interested in what follows — it discusses a current buzzword — but it does reveal a couple answers.
From Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle:
Not recommended: the word THROUPLE. The state of THROUPLEdom, I'm agnostic on, but the word THROUPLE is singularly ugly. And nonsenscial. A couple is two. I get that you are reconceiving "couple" but why not just make it its own thing. I proposed THREEDOM and my housemates (not that drunk) thought it was pretty good. "We Invite You To Celebrate Our THREEDOM!" "Let THREEDOM Ring!" You can do a lot with THREEDOM, I'm just saying.
"Threedom" is amusing, but it's amusing in the same way as "throuple." I get Parker's point, which is that "throuple" fails to imply the argument that one is breaking loose from convention. It seems to purport to be just a modest variation on an old standard. But maybe that's the point.
How free are you in a set of 3? Maybe you're less free, because you can always be out-voted. The other 2 can always ally against you. Oh, the gas-lighting! In a couple, you're (at least potentially) equal. I like the way "throuple" sounds like "trouble." It sends its own warning.
And if you want another word, there's "triad," which has that great David Crosby song — famously sung by Grace Slick on The Jefferson Airplane's "Crown of Creation." It's the song that broke up The Byrds, a band that began as a threesome. Oh! There's the answer: "threesome." And "threesome" corresponds to "throuple" in a way "threedom" does not. Rex had to change "throuple" to "throupledom" to make his various jokes.
And maybe you don't think throupling is funny, but part of the decline of civilization. I'm not sure "civilization" is even an acceptable word anymore. It's right wing, isn't it?! Speaking of what's acceptable these days... the NYT puzzle had "tampon" as one answer, clued as an "alternative" to "pad." Rex found that "thrilling" and expressed happiness that "the puzzle went there, having been squeamish about such things for many, many years." He doesn't mention that "tampon" crosses with "TMI" (clued as "That's enough!").
But let's drift back 17 years, to the post I wrote about "Triad" on January 21, 2006, "Snow... and a hippie song":
It snowed last night:
Silvio wants to drive out into the country:
Playing on the stereo, "Triad" (sung by David Crosby, not Grace Slick):I want to know how it will beRemember that? I love the way he's overflowing with love yet still manages to say "face like ice a little bit colder." The whole world is transforming, except the part where men hate their mother-in-law. Anyway, great classic song expressing the deluded idea, which seemed true at the time, that if we just stopped listening to the uptight squares -- with their rules, man -- we could find infinite pleasure.
Me and her or you and me
You both stand there with your long hair flowing
Your eyes alive, your minds are still growing
Saying to me what can we do now that we
Both love you -- I love you too
I don't really see, why can't we go on as three
You are afraid, embarrased too, no one has ever
Said such a thing to you
Your mother's ghost stands at you shoulder
A face like ice a little bit colder
Saying to you
You can not do that it breaks all the rules
You learned in school
I don't really see, why can't we go on as three
We love each other it's plain to see
There's just one answer comes to me
Sister lovers -- water brothers
And in time maybe others
So you see what we can do
If we try something new - if you're crazy too
I don't really see, why can't we go on as three
AND: The problem with "threesome" is that it sounds like an isolated sexual encounter, not an ongoing, committed relationship.
And isn't it nice — here in the hottest part of the year — to see the snow... the snow of 2006... the snows of yesteryear? Remember when we still had snow? But we didn't hear the warning, and now it's too late.
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32 comments:
What I don't like about throuple (the word) is that it my brain must work to hard to translate it from throople to thrupple.
I want to know how it will be
Me and her or you and me
Three-body problem
"...Unlike two-body problems, no general closed-form solution exists,..."
"Tampon" was originally a device for cleaning the bore of a cannon. This meaning has fallen out of use.
Three's a crowd.
Ahhh. The Byrds have been my displayed albums over in record player corner this week. No Triad though. The sig other wouldn't have it.
Althouse writes, "I'm not sure "civilization" is even an acceptable word anymore. It's right-wing, isn't it?!"
It's acceptable, but the term must be applied equally to every culture, whether the subject is the Athens of Pericles or the paleolithic tribesmen of North Sentinel Island, such that in American English civilization is both acceptable and meaningless. Woman is another word headed for the same ash heap if we're not vigilant.
My mother loved those big colorful books that used to appear on living room coffee tables as a token of culture and sophistication, the semicolon of home décor. One of her favorites was Sir Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation, the companion volume to his famous BBC serial. I clearly recall his definition of the term, which comprised most of his preface to the larger work. He defined it as a culture directed toward posterity. As an example, Sir Kenneth contrasted two 9th-century Western European cultures, the Norse of Scandinavia and the islands of the North Atlantic, and the Carolingian empire. He noted that while the Vikings created vibrant and complex decorative art and perfected techniques of shipbuilding and navigation unrivaled by the classical Mediterranean world, they neglected to build in stone, whereas the Franks created feats of Pre-Romanesque architecture, such as the Octagon Chapel in Aachen, that stand intact and breathtaking today. In his view, the Carolingians had a civilization and the Vikings did not because the architecture of the Franks reflected a sense of permanence the Vikings' culture lacked.
Another option to ponder is tripod.
I have my hands full with just the one. Why do people do this to themselves?
You could fund your retirement betting at least one member of a throuple has ‘activist’ listed as their profession somewhere…
tcrosse writes, "Tampon was originally a device for cleaning the bore of a cannon. This meaning has fallen out of use."
I think the word you're thinking of is tampion, a protective plug for the muzzle of an artillery piece. Here's a submarine deck gun with its tampion.
Tampions were often used to display heraldry as well as to protect the bore from water and debris, for example.
“ I don't really see, why can't we go on as three.”
Well, you better see! Behold the Edmonds Act. At least that is what my great grandfather and his brother Angus and others were told, in no uncertain terms.
(And you think WE are the uptight squares.)
I would like to comment. If only I could remember my name!
In his view, the Carolingians had a civilization and the Vikings did not because the architecture of the Franks reflected a sense of permanence the Vikings' culture lacked
Somebody was read The Three Little Pigs a few too many times as a child.
When I read those lyrics, I am embarrassed for myself as a teenager.
I suppose "throuple" is at least partly derived from an obsolete British term, thruppence, the cockney variant of threepence. Before the decimalization, the pound sterling contained 240 pence, with 2, 3, and 5 as prime factors. Consequently, a threepence coin was very common, the last ones being minted in 1970.
Thruppence had charm and a nice pairing with tuppence. Throuple, however, looks, acts, and sounds ridiculous -- thrice-cursed, one might say.
"Somebody was read The Three Little Pigs a few too many times as a child."
Me or Sir Kenneth Clarke?
When again shall we meet in throuple,
In thunder, lightning, or in poople?
MacBetty, Act I, scene i
Rhyming throuple with poople, suggested grouple. A couple is two, a throuple is three, therefore a grouple is a set of four or more considered as one.
You can't call "Dogpile!" unless you have at least three people.
Isn't it male chauvinism to equate "tampon" with "pad?" Isn't there a difference which makes one or the other a distinct choice? in a woman's life.
And now the topic.
Suppose it was today and it was one man (special), one woman (regular), one woman (special)? Would there be jealousy (regular) or a civil rights case when things went wrong? Would there be testimony in court?
Do not read this.
How does a teenage male acquire a vagina? They cut off the obstructions and cut a small hole which the girl then dilates with a metal dilator for two hours a day for years in order to create a vagina which is a large enough hole in a certain place. The dilation hurts and isn't kept up very well without parental authority and without being kept up the surgery is useless. I'm not sure where the hole leads and I was sorry I'd read that far about the process. However, it just seems to me that a boy who is uncomfortable in his changing body isn't winning on the discomfort-with-a-changing-body front by undergoing this process. People are making money off the pain of bewildered children - that's it.
It's just a "TRIO". Throuple and Threedom are both unnecessarily novel. Triad seems to indicate a Trio that is involved in governing or ruling. It's just a Trio. Can they just study a bit and stop making up new words for words that are perfectly appropriate?
"Remember when we still had snow?" -like 6 months ago (not even). I can only hope your remarks on snow and civilization are meant to be sarcastic.
I think MÉNAGE À TROIS is best for a couple of reasons: It is euphonic in a way these other alternatives are not. Being French, the decadence is baked-in. Would this be en croute?
If it's not, I wish it were.
In our benighted world of ubiquitous hierarchies and power dynamics, surely a "throuple" or "threesome" or "triad" or "trio" is the smallest unit of preservation of power, regardless of the word.
A group of three that isn't in a perfect line always forms a triangle. A skinny* triangular prism like a triangular pencil, thrown onto the floor, will always fall on a flat side, with one "ridge" up. (*Skinny because I'm not a mathematician - to make my point, I'm trying to conceptualize a planar triangle landing at right angles to a plane, so now we're in a 3d world of two intersecting planes, but that's just not concrete enough. So my triangle becomes a triangular prism so everyone can visualize it as a real thing, and a skinny one so it can't realistically land on one of its two triangular ends.)
If it's a regular triangle, each of the three ridge-apexes - apices? - will be "up" about a third of the time. But in a human relationship, how often does it happen that each individual has exactly the same power as the other(s)? Isn't it more likely that the asymmetrical pencil will most often land on one side? Trouble, indeed. At least as much as in a couple, and I'd argue more, because of the ganging up potential.
All of the above is a joke. But the conclusion - that a throuple or whatever you want to call it is a haven and a greenhouse for bad relationship dynamics - is not.
I have a tattoo of a Celtic "motherhood knot." It incorporates three dots, one for each of my kids. When I got it about seven years ago, the very first question my daughter asked was, "Who's the top dot?" So I've had to create a tattoo rota in which each kid is top dot for 1/3 of the year. We are at present in my oldest's top dot period.
"How free are you in a set of 3?"
Freedom requires perpetual strength. How free are you in a set of just two, or on your own for that matter?
"And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
- Ecclesiastes 4:12
There are few phrases in English less appetizing than “David Crosby threesome.”
There's a podcast called Threedom; it's Paul F. Tompkins, Lauren Lapkus, and Scott Auckerman.
It's often funny but they frequently shout at one another; bit of an acquired taste.
Threedom podcast
Triple Play
Free Manure While You Wait! said...
"Freedom requires perpetual strength."
Or superior firepower.
I suggest "triumvirate," except for the pesky "vir" in there, which seems not to be womyn-inclusive enough. But hey, good enough for Brutus and Cassius, amirite? Along with that third dude (Lepidus?) who gets dumped by the other two early on. But then, that too is sadly realistic.
something like throuple keep seccret if two dead!!??
Rex is a crossword wizard. Amazing. I check him daily.
But politically, he's a twit and an ass.
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