She is your second cousin once removed upward (one level above your second cousin). You are her first cousin once removed downward (one level below her first cousin).
The relationship can be described from the perspective of either individual - upward or downward from his/her generation. As you say, he would be a first cousin once removed (downward) from the parent, but the parent is a second cousin once removed (upward) from him.
Seems to confirm I’m right and you’re wrong. the “cousin” refers to the older generation and the “removed” revers to the number of generations to the younger one.
This is a common misconception, but it’s wrong. As has been said, “removed” is always calculated relative to the oldest generation involved. The two individuals are first cousins once removed, period. The relationship does not differ regardless of whose perspective is considered.
If all this sounds confusing and arbitrary, that’s because it is. There are many different ways to refer to relatives in the languages of the world. You can learn something about that here:
Yes. For example, many Asian languages distinguish older siblings from younger siblings. One does not simply speak of having a sister - one speaks of a big sister or a little sister. You can certainly do that in English (always refer to the relative ages of your siblings whenever you speak of them or address them), but you have to use extra words. Likewise, I assume that you can be ambiguous in terms of relative age in Chinese without committing a grammar violation, but it would be more awkward and it sounds more natural to just identify her by relative age rather than twist the language around. Does anyone here speak one of those languages? How easy is it to just say “sister” or “brother” without specifying age?
If you watch anime, watch out for sibling language use. There’s a big difference between an o-nee-chan and an imouto.
In English, giving the gender of a sibling is almost obligatory (since “sibling” is a slightly rarish word and would surprise listener – “why is he concealing the person’s gender?”). In Thai, giving the relative age is obligatory. If unknown, one would guess or say clumsily “older sibling or younger sibling – I don’t know.”
Although the relative age is obligatory in Thai, gender is non-obligatory in many cases and is often omitted. Occasionally, when my wife is relating a local incident she won’t know the gender of one of the minor characters. Contrariwise, I often just guess older/younger when explaining something to her.
Aunt/uncle is complicated in Thai. There are eight possibilities – {older,younger} {sister,brother} of {mother,father}. English uses only two words to cover all eight cases. Thai uses four words, but the four words map to the eight cases in a somewhat curious way: when the aunt/uncle is older than the parent, the word depicts the gender of aunt/uncle; but when aunt/uncle is younger, it is the parent (aunt/uncle’s older sibling) whose gender is revealed.
In Thai, the word for 1st cousin is slightly clumsy: luuk phii luuk nong, literally “child of older sibling, child of younger sibling,” which in effect depicts the exact relationship. The words for grandchild, great-grandchild and even gt-gt-grandchild are all single syllable words, so it would seem that there should be simple words for 2nd cousin, etc., e.g. laan phii laan nong – 2nd cousin leen phii luuk nong – 1st cousin 2x removed
Since genealogy and practicing Thai are two of my avocations, and since distant cousin relationships are plentiful in rural Thailand, I often try out these invented words for 2nd cousin, etc., only to discover that, although easily explained, such words are not in use.