On 2004/09/09, at 12:56, David Ritchie wrote: > > Any help and guidance from this list will be welcome. This is possibly the sort of faux pas that occurs when someone takes a non-serious question seriously, but.... A Google search for "joking relationships" turns up 66,700 entries. "Joking relationship" has a special technical sense in social anthropology, where it refers to to relationships between people who are expected, perhaps even required, to tease and joke with each other. Joking relationships are often paired with avoidance relationships, in which the parties concerned are supposed to have nothing to do with each other. Trying to sort out who jokes with who and when can be an interesting exercise. John L. McCreery The Word Works, Ltd. 55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku Yokohama, Japan 220-0006 Tel 81-45-314-9324 Email mccreery@xxxxxxx "Making Symbols is Our Business" ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html