" She had rarely called him honey, and he thought: This is weird. Honey was for a moment of extremeness. She had reached out from their usual vocabulary and into that of some other generation; the words that they usually used wouldn’t do. Honey was weird, but it was a bridge across the terrifying open space between where they had been and where they now were. A honeyed bridge that would take them forward as best it could. "

― Meg Wolitzer , The Female Persuasion