People Didn’t Used to Ask for ‘Space’ in Their Relationships
The expression caught on in the 1970s and is now so common as to be a cliché—but it’s still as confusing as ever.
The Amazon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has been praised for the “intricate,” “meticulously created” fictional 1958 world that the titular comedian Midge Maisel and her loved ones inhabit. But while the visuals of the series may be transporting, the dialogue, for the sociologist Jay Livingston, is occasionally jarring. He’s written a couple of blog posts about the anachronistic words and phrases characters have used on the show—“totally,” “kicking ass,” and “alternate universe” among them.
The second season of Mrs. Maisel just came out, and in the first episode, Livingston heard, this time spoken by Midge’s estranged husband, Joel Maisel: “I think it would be better to have a little space right now,” he tells her.
