THE HALF TERM OF AFFECTION

Were people really calling their loved ones "honey" before the advent of pop music? There's a lot of "honey" and "baby" going on in the rock and the roll, I notice, but I'm suspicious that no one uses these terms in Victorian novels.

Now "darling", that's very popular. Darling has it covered in the pre-pop music world. The term darling is dropped with gay abandon. ("Gay abandon" is also dropped with significantly more gay abandon than it is today, I've noticed, but that's a whole other issue. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

But "honey"? Nope, that just doesn't show up.

I get the meaning here. My darling is sweet, honey is sweet, I call her honey. But I think it's really down to lazy lyricists who couldn't come up with enough rhymes for the accepted term of endearment.

You see, "My honey" can easily be funny, earn money, enjoy days that are sunny, have a pet bunny, like her eggs runny and so on. The rhyming opportunities are as limitless as you need in a three and a half minute pop song.

But "darling"?

I love my darling,
She looks like Joe Stalin.

That's all I've got, comrade, and, let's be honest, no woman wants to hear that comparison.