[QUOTE=Joey P]
You’re brother-in-law’s brother would also be your brother-in-law.
Your sister’s brother-in-law would be different.
[/QUOTE]
No, they’re the exact same person – the brother of the man who’s married to my sister.
[QUOTE=twickster]
No, they’re the exact same person – the brother of the man who’s married to my sister.
[/QUOTE]
Your brother-in-law (first example) can also be your spouse’s brother.
[QUOTE=twickster]
No, they’re the exact same person – the brother of the man who’s married to my sister.
[/QUOTE]
My BIL’s brother could be my wife’s brother (if she has more then one).
Shelly Winters as Nana Mary (Roseanne’s mother’s mother): Let’s see, you are married to my daughter’s husband’s father. That makes you and me…nothing.
When I met my brother’s wife’s sister’s husband’s brother, we tried to figure out the simplest way to describe our relationship. We gave up.
I can’t post what my siblings call my Father-in-law.
At least not in GQ.
[QUOTE=pkbites]
I can’t post what my siblings call my Father-in-law.
At least not in GQ.
[/QUOTE]
Jerry?
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Your brother-in-law (first example) can also be your spouse’s brother.
[/QUOTE]
Could be, but isn’t. I was pointing out that one particular individual could be identified in two (slightly) different ways, not that there couldn’t be more than one way of fitting into that slot.
[QUOTE=StuffLikeThatThere]
My husband calls them “shirttail relatives.”
By them I mean your brother’s father-in-law, and other not-quite-relatives that you feel related to because you are both related to the same people in different ways. I think it’s just something that he made up himself, but I kind of like it.
[/QUOTE]
I came in to say that. It’s a good term, since people like that are not exactly your friends, usually, and they are not exactly your relatives, but you keep bumping into them on Thanksgiving and other family gathering-type holidays.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Is there a word for this relationship?
[/QUOTE]
We’ve used “uncle-in-law” to describe the relationship between me and any number of my relatives by marriage, but the family I married into is large, Italian, and doesn’t really bother with describing relationships with any deal of precision.
[QUOTE=twickster]
Could be, but isn’t. I was pointing out that one particular individual could be identified in two (slightly) different ways, not that there couldn’t be more than one way of fitting into that slot.
[/QUOTE]
My mistake.
I have no brothers or sisters, but my sister in law’s father in law is also my wife’s uncle, somehow. It makes more sense in Spanish.
Are you your own grandpa, by any chance?
I wish.
[QUOTE=zagloba]
“shirttail relatives” is a good term for such people, but if your husband made it up independently, he’s not the first or only one to do so. I’ve heard and read it in many places, though I can’t tell you how common or widespread it is.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, probably he didn’t, then. He’s just the only one I’ve ever heard use it, and he does have a tendency toward coining new phrases if there isn’t an appropriate one available. But if you’ve heard it elsewhere, probably so has he.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Title says it all, really. Is there a word for this relationship?
[/QUOTE]
In Tennessee, he’s often your grandfather.
Inlaws of your sibling = “Competitors for presence of sibling at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner”.
No deaths, divorces or remarriages or other stuff allowed my Dad to say, “My sister-in-law’s son-in-law is my brother-in-law.”
[QUOTE=StuffLikeThatThere]
Oh, probably he didn’t, then. He’s just the only one I’ve ever heard use it, and he does have a tendency toward coining new phrases if there isn’t an appropriate one available. But if you’ve heard it elsewhere, probably so has he.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it’s an old phrase. Here’s OED’s earliest cite for it:
We call them our out-laws.