(no subject)

[cellio]

Is there a word in English to designate the person who is my husband's brother-in-law? Saying that he is my brother-in-law implies, to me, that either he is my sister's husband or my husband's brother. The person I'm describing is my husband's sister's husband.

I don't need this word often, but the person in question comes up in conversation just often enough to cause me to trip over this too many times.

Comments

[chite.livejournal.com]

I think no. We should invent one. :)

Really though, "Dani's sister's husband" may be clumsy, but you only have to say it once and then can use "he" or his name :)

[eub.livejournal.com]

"Brother second-in-law"?
"Brother in-lah-li-law"?

[ironangel]

there isn't a single word, no. there also isn't a word for the relationship between my in-laws (ben's parents) and my parents; apparently there is in hungarian.

I usually say ben's x-in-law - assuming they know who ben is!

hm. thinking about this, ben has one sibling who is single. I guess this is just how I picture it, then...

[magid.livejournal.com]

There's a word in Hebrew for the relationship between the parents of people who are married to each other, also.

I find it interesting how some cultures recognize different (more?) relationships as important enough to have a single word to identify them. (I suspect that in some language somewhere, there are different words for the 2 different meanings of brother-in-law, too....)i

[arib.livejournal.com]

yeah, machatanim, I think.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Considering that Japanese (and Chinese too, I think) has a different word for {older,younger} x {sister, brother} and a different word for aunts and uncles (and their children your cousins) depending on which parent they're blood-related to and whether they're older or younger than that parent, it seems reasonable to assume that they have different words for the weird in-law relationships.

The bizarre part is that all the words are written differently, but all the cousin, aunt, and uncle words are pronounced the same as each other. :)

[chite.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that although I have (only!) 13 first cousins, and hundreds of second cousins and cousins removed, my family does not make a distinction between them. We also don't make much of a distinction among in-laws.

I guess we're close that way.

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

I'm now confused. I would call Dani's sister's husband my brother-in-law. Dani's sister being your sister-in-law.

That's how I had been using it, but apparently there are many interperetations.

[cellio]

Well, see, by that reasoning, then "brother-in-law" could mean any of the following:

1. my sister's husband
2. my husband's brother
3. my sister's husband's brother
4. my husband's sister's husband

If you permit 3 and 4, then you really don't have a strong case to not also permit:

5. my sister's husband's brother's wife's brother
6. my husband's sister's husband's brother

I mean, once you've gone two steps out, why not 3, or 4, or N?

I'm an engineer. I want to reduce ambiguity. In an ideal world, I would be able to conveniently distinguish 1 and 2 from each other.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

The steps are of different quality, and makes more sense if you consider married couples to be one pseudo-single person. You're really only going one sibling-link to call both Dani's brother and his wife your whatever-in-law. The in-law part then only implies that traversing one or more marriage-links is necessary. I suppose in cultures that allow multiple-way marriages it becomes possible to traverse 3 or 4 marriage-links and still only one sibling-link to get to an X-in-law.

Inlaws and Outlaws :D

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

Forgive the subject line, it's the punchline of an old joke. "If marriage is outlawed, then only outlaws will have in-laws." I did a search on Google for "husband's sister's husband" and came up with only five pages, most of which were irrelevant. The rest seem evenly divided between "brother-in-law" and "no relation".

Since there doesn't appear to be a standardized word in English, you may want to consider stealing the appropriate term from the Hindu language. Of course then you'd spend more time explaining the term then you would have explaining the relationship. :D Check it out!
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jishnu/101/FamilyAndRelations/default.asp?l1=nul

[celebrin.livejournal.com]

The only word is the yiddish word machetenum It's a catch all. And translates to "Dear Ones" or something like that. If I'm wrong, blame my mother.

[unsee1ie.livejournal.com]

brother in law by marriage?

/delurk>

[gingicat]

brother-in-law once removed?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

"In-law" links only go one level.

From your standpoint, brother-in-law refers to:

• your sister's husband
• your husband's brother
• your husband's sister's husband

It does not refer to siblings or in-laws of your in-laws.