I voted for the recipe. 33% of the reason I include the recipes is for people who don’t want to go on record in the poll but do want to be able to easily view the results.
And the other person who didn’t vote with the majority said it was a brainfart.
That would be panache45’s cousin. Maybe actually the same person?
Half-brothers are kids who share the same father. Half-sisters are kids who share the same mother. Half-brother/half-sister means a boy and girl, where the boy’s father is the girl’s mother. There were probably any number of these among the families of the ancient Pharaohs.
First choice (share one parent but not the other; doesn’t matter if mother or father).
To me, half- connotes distance. If I had grown up with my half-sibling, I would just call him or her my brother or sister, no prefix necessary unless some specific issue of genetics arose. If I hadn’t grown up with said sibling, I would say half-brother or half-sister as a way of establishing we had not grown up together like conventional siblings.
It’s not very accurate, because full-biological siblings can be raised apart, but whether the siblings are raised together tends to shape the nature of their relationship.
I only ever refer to my half-sister as such when it is necessary for me to explain why she didn’t live with me growing up. If we had the same mother, chances are good she would have lived in my house with me, and I never would have to reduce her to a half.
First choice. It describes a genetic relationship, not a legal one.
Hi. I’m the other idiot. I have a half-sister via my late mother and knee-jerked. I blame the beer I just had.
I think of it this way. Half-sibling is a genealogical and genetic relationship. Your mother’s daughter from her first marriage that you grew up with may be your half-sister de jure yet your older sister de facto. I’m not really sure how legal relationships really matter. There are sociological relationships which might not have much to do with the genealogical or genetic ones.
No, that’s my first cousin once removed.
Obviously it’s option 1. I don’t usually mention whether my siblings are half, step or adopted, but it does come up now and then and then it would be weird to be inaccurate.
I have three half-siblings who grew up in a different state than me. As we’re family, but nowhere near as close as my brothers and I are, I refer to them as my half-brother and half-sisters. The half-sibs have a half-brother of their own, who I didn’t meet until I was grown up. When trying to explain it to someone the first time, I eventually said “we’re not related, but we are family.” Worked for everyone.
I din’t think you could get the poll numbers that unanimous if you tried.
I have step-siblings, but not half-siblings. So I do know the difference, and I voted for choice 1.
We have a very blended family. My daughter loves to let people know that she has 1 brother, 1 half-sister, 2 half-brothers and 3 step-brothers. Oh, and a half-sister on the way. Don’t get her started on how many half/step cousins there are… she takes it a little to far!
I’d ask her about her cousins. Cause that’s the sort of guy I am. 
One of the biological parents is the same and the other is not – doesn’t matter which is which. That is my impression of the term. I have never heard it be used to mean anything differently nor have I ever heard that it mattered which parent is shared.
Well, if my parent had divorced, and then one of my parents had adopted another child, that child, with whom I share only one parent, would be my half-sibling, no?
And yeah, no one ever uses the term half, except for clarification.