A FRIEND’S irritation about being called “mate” – or worse, he said, “buddy” by a shop assistant reminded me of my first trip to Salisbury’s charter market in 2005.

Having just moved to the UK, it took me by surprise that in just two hours, with a “Thank you darling” here and “Hello my love” there – I’d been addressed by more terms of endearment than in a decade-plus of married life.

What’s in a name? Or, more to the point, what’s in a pet name?

Terms of endearment express some degree of intimacy but the nickname itself isn’t enough.

A shop assistant who says: “Let me know if you need help finding anything, buddy” to a man perusing the shirt rack has a smarmy air about it, which is probably not the case if the veg seller on the market who says, “Thanks, buddy” when handing a man some change. No one is anyone’s buddy in either case, so whether it grates is down to the sincerity of expression.

When it comes to couples, psychologists say that pet names such as “baby” or “honey” or “darling” are a healthy sign of intimacy because they help form a kind of private world people create together.

Certainly the impulse to use them appears timeless and universal.

Themes of sweetness span the centuries – hundreds of years ago British lovers were calling each other saccharine-sounding names such as “honeysop”, “sweetikin” and “sucket”.

Though the use of the term “mite” has waned over time, the French are still going strong with “puce”. Though its meaning (flea) may not sound endearing, it is as deceptively soft and sweet-sounding to the ear as any sugar-coated expression.

The same is true for “chou” or “chouchou”, a derivation of the word for cauliflower and used for children and lovers alike. And, while a British man who calls his wife or girlfriend “fatty” is unlikely to be considered a romantic fool in this country, “gorda” and its male equivalent “gordo” are common expressions of affection in some Latin American countries.

Context is all-important here – a parent calling a child “a little ratbag” can sound positively doting and it doesn’t take much more than a sharp edge in delivery to suck the sweetness out of a pet name and turn it into something patronising.

Tone is especially crucial with some of the more specialised terms of endearment: consider the case of the British man whose Tibetan wife calls him “Nyingdu-la”, which he says translates as “Most honoured poison of my heart”.