For the 1980 census, the bureaucrats of the U.S. Census Bureau came up with an acronym to describe the increasingly frequent arrangement of unmarried males and females living together. The acronym was "POSSLQ," which stood for "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters."
CBS's irrepressible Charles Osgood managed to find the humor in this bit of seemingly unpronounceable government gobbledygook. He decided that it could be pronounced in three syllables – as "POSS-ul-kyoo," then wrote this whimsical bit of verse around it:
Come and Be My POSSLQ
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
If you would be my POSSLQ.
You live with me, and I with you,
And you will be my POSSLQ.
I'll be your friend and so much more;
That's what a POSSLQ is for.
And everything we will confess;
Yes, even to the IRS.
Some day on what we both may earn,
Perhaps we'll file a joint return.
You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint;
You'll share my life – up to a point!
And that you'll be so glad to do,
Because you'll be my POSSLQ.
Needless to add, since 1980, the phenomenon of unmarried males and females living together has become so ubiquitous that the Census Bureau discarded the POSSLQ acronym years ago. Apparently, they're now using the plain vanilla term "unmarried partners." It's difficult to find any humor in that.
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