I'm continually astounded at the ability of the English language to furnish new words for new needs. When innovative technologies, trends or ideas expose gaps in the front line of our vocabulary, we quickly send in fresh soldiers — new words — to plug the holes.

People are taking snapshots of themselves with their cell phones? "Selfies!" Face-like symbols are scampering through emails and texts? "Emojis!" Two straight guys are becoming close friends? "Bromance!" Young women are speaking with a gravelly growl? "Vocal fry!" Men on subways are taking up two seats? "Manspreading!" But what astounds me even more is that English has failed to generate new words to describe other significant phenomena or simply to fill basic linguistic functions. Why, for instance, don't we have a general term to describe an adult in a loving relationship with someone else? The terms of first resort — "boyfriend" and girlfriend" — evoke puppy love in middle school. When an 88-year-old woman tells me about her new "boyfriend," I can't help picturing a teenager.

In all fairness, you can't say we haven't TRIED to come up with a better term. But, like hapless gamblers at the horse track, we've put our money on a dreary succession of losers: "partner" — too business-like; "POSSLQ" (Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters) — too complicated; "significant other" — too cerebral; "sweetheart" — too gooey; "lover" — too sexual; "lady friend" or "gentleman friend" — too Victorian; "beau" — too old-fashioned; "paramour" — too suggestive.

Similarly, people have been trying for centuries to devise a gender-neutral, third-person singular pronoun to replace the clunky "he or she/him or her" construction. Nominees have included "heshe," "s/he," "heesh,""himorher," "hisher," "hirm," "emself," "hem," "shim" and "hu."

Guess what? We still don't have a usable word to perform one of the most basic functions in a language.

And then there's the question of what to call the past decade. Here we are, five years after the end of the 2000s, and we still don't know what to call them. I've heard "two-thousands" (which could be misinterpreted to mean the entire century), "aughties" (too quaint), "twenty-zeroes" (too mathematical) and "twenty ohs" (sounds like a breakfast cereal).

Mostly, we just seem to avoid mentioning this decade, which, given some of the events it witnessed, may be a good call after all.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

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