Misty Harris, “‘Conscious Uncoupling’ Pretentious But Signals Real Trend” (Postmedia News, Mar. 27, 2014)
Ben Zimmer, a noted lexicographer, said this disconnect is reflected in ongoing changes to the language around relationship dissolution.
“It makes sense to try to find a new set of terms and vocabulary to get away from the fraught taboos of separation and divorce,” said Zimmer, executive producer of Vocabulary.com. “There’s a lot of therapeutic talk around this issue, encouraging people to think about these things not as single events but as an ongoing process.”
In fact, Zimmer found a reference to “uncoupling” as a synonym for divorce as early as 1942. So why is Paltrow, whose sepia-washed split announcement used the contentious term, getting so much flak?
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