AuntiePam, had you grown up in Philadelphia in the sixties, you’d have been darlinged, dolled, deared and sweethearted half to death. By women your mom’s age, but still.
Thanks for the replies!
To me, darling is a stronger term of endearment than honey, baby, sweetheart, etc., which sound more casual. Darling should be reserved for serious relationships. I don’t know where I got that notion. Apparently it’s a cockamamie notion!
People in movies use it too quickly. One date (no sex) and they’re each other’s darlings?
I don’t watch a lot of contemporary movies, but my impression is that darling isn’t used much anymore. Is it dated? Or am I just not watching the right movies?
My husband of 26 years calls me “darlin’” (which I love as long as it comes from him) and I call him “sweetheart” and when he calls on the phone I say “Hi babe.” I don’t know either of those endearments bother him. He’s never said so.
I use it, but I love old-timey terms, and I always drop the g. Somehow it seems so formal if you don’t.
I remember reading an interview with Annette O’Toole, speaking of the Oscar-nominated song she and husband Michael McKean wrote for A Mighty Wind, and she said she though it was so sad that he had never been called darling before he met her that she had to have it in the song.
As I read this thread I keep hearing David Alan Coe’s “you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’, but you never even call me by my name” playing in my head.
I use darling occasionally, along with some others that can sound a little stupid if written down, so I won’t.