I'm an older sister, my brother is 3 1/2 years younger than me.



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Do something pretty while you can...

Minsky says: I'm a twin. But not *gives Chomsky a disparaging look* an _identical_ twin, you understand.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

I'm an only child with a younger brother and sister.

Yup I do come from a confusing family, my dad had kids with his 3rd wife (I'm product of 1st)

My brother and sister are 9 and 4 years older than my daughter I've only met them a few times. (my dad has real problems with the idea of a grand daughter, but then he is an idiot- and no I'm not being harsh I seldom use that word at all)

Andrea
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Sylvester says.... *plock*




actually he says peep, cheep, chirrup, squalk,muttermuttergrumblegrumble, oh and now he falls off his pirch whish is followed by a sheepish peek round to see if anyone was looking and a quick scramble back up

geez, I think I hold the Fforum record for biggest family so far...and no, we're not even Catholic or Mormon! My parents just didn't understand birth control! LOL

In that case, I might have the smallest family ever... I am an older sister to a rather tall little brother (who incidentally went to that same little brother school)... both my parents are only children so I have no aunts, uncles, neices or nephews (is there a collective noun for such relatives???)

They broke the mould when they made me...

(Didn't want to make the same mistake twice...)



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

It's Entroposcope-checking time, again: Only last night I was thinking that we need a collective term for nieces+nephews, and another one for uncles+aunts...

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"Warning! Product may contain Newts!"

how about "sibkids" and "rentsibs"

"Sibkids" was actually my first idea of a word for these, too. "rentsibs"?

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"Warning! Product may contain Newts!"

as in parents' sibs... here in the US, a slang term for parents is 'rents

Haven't heard that particular slang myself, so it sounded like brothers and sisters for rent or lease. Not a bad idea, actually.....



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

that's cuz you're in the quasi-MidWest, Magda...I heard it a lot on the west coast and it has now hit the east coast too. I think it started as California valley speak. "Like, Oh my God, gag me with a spoon!" (only Americans really understand that! LOL)

Actually, AAC, no one except for maybe a small percentage of cheerleaders in LA talks like that. Over here on the West COast we talk like that to make fun of people who talk like that...^head spinning^

I'm an oldest. Damn my parents for getting another!



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Revolt! Revolt! No matter why or when,
It's novelty--old novelty again.

well, back in the 80's it was VERY common. I lived on the west coast then, so I remember...but you're right, not many people have the "valley" accent anymore unless they're trying to bust on someone.

I have two older brothers; much older brothers. Geoff is 14 years older than me, Chris 9 years. Geoff joined the Army when I was four (it was better than working for Norwich Union), so we haven't spent much time together. I was an oops but my parents were delighted to have a little girl. Possibly less delighted since...

Have you not seen 'Rent a Kid', Magda?



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

i haven't, but I've watched RentaGhost...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I have two friends (sisters), who are their own cousins !

Step-cousins to be accurate. Their mother divorced their father, and married his brother, their uncle.

My best friend at high school had half-siblings, a full blood brother, and eventually, step-siblings. The half-sibs were by her father's first wife, who died when her kids were teenagers. Ruth and brother were born to second, younger wife. Ruth's father died when she was 13, and her mother later married a widower, who had young adult children from his first marriage.

I'd hate to draw up those family trees !

By extrapolation from the official genealogical definitions of first cousins, second cousins, etc., siblings are 0'th cousins, aunts and uncles are 0'th cousins once removed in ascendancy (or removed upward), and nieces and nephews are 0'th cousins once removed in descendancy (or removed downward).

But zero'th cousins (or zero'th anything) is an awkward mouthful (I guess in England you'd call say zeddeth?). The parallel with "siblings", though, suggests the terms "uplings" and "downlings", which to my ear has a nicer ring than sibkids or rentkids.

You could even pretend that "sib" stood for "side", which would make a nice extension to up and down, but unfortunately it doesn't. According to etymological dictionaries, it derives simply from a term for meaning "kin" or "relative". A related word is "gossip", which originally indicated a godparent or godchild ("god kin"), and apparently acquired its current meaning on the basis of godparents gossiping about their godchildren, perhaps because godparents often served as matchmakers, or maybe because a gossip acts like they're everyone's godparent.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is no official word in English for the term we're looking for, so I guess we can feel free to coin our own.

[www.askoxford.com]

I'm the eldest of three, with a younger sister and brother...Why'd you ask Carla?