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Pet names are the tip of the iceberg of private languages, and these present couples with yet another language issue: How far to indulge this impulse? Undoubtedly, it runs deep. According to scientists, approximately 40 percent of twins under the age of five or six (and some close-in-age siblings too) have a language that they speak only with each other. An awful lot of couples I know share at least a few words of a private language, including Julian and me. Ask either one of us "Do you have a doppelganger?" and the response you'll get will seem almost as far off-topic as Raymond's response to "Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?" in the original Manchurian Candidate.

But I'm pretty sure that if someone doing a telephone survey asked me whether I use special words, never mind special gestures and intonations, when conversing alone with my husband, I'd say, "Of course not," and hang up. I would be lying, yes, but not without reason. I would be maintaining a human being's inalienable right to privacy. And I would be upholding the honorable tradition of the Samoan teenagers who lied shamelessly to Margaret Mead, probably because they found it shameless of her to be asking about intimate things they did when no one else was around.

Julian and I, I'll admit, have not resolved every difficulty that has arisen in our life as a couple, but I do think that by now we've got the basic language problems aced. Thus we are able to communicate with each other more subtly, with more nuance, than we can with anyone else. For instance:

I'm not an early riser, but at six on a recent morning, my dear pet forgot this, as he does surprisingly often, and tried to start a conversation with me.

I said, "I want to go back to sleep, Julian."

And he replied, "Don't you call me that!"

Barbara Wallraff writes language columns for the Atlantic Monthly and King Features syndicate. Her most recent book is Your Own Words, and you can bring language problems to her at www.wordcourt.com.