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Below is a sentence I wrote. Not sure if the relative clause here is natural.

It's rude to call a girl with whom I had only one talk by her pet name.

I wonder if it will be better to use a verb here.

It's rude to call a girl with whom I talked only once by her pet name.

Not quite sure where only should be put in this sentence, so I came up with another version:

It's rude to call a girl with whom I only talked once by her pet name.

Which one sounds more natural to you? Besides, if you have any other alternatives, please don't hesitate to share them with me.

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  • Your construction leaves open the possibility that you were talking to someone else - rather than the girl herself - when you called her by her pet name. You could remove this ambiguity by using to address instead of to call.
    – Ronald Sole
    Dec 11 '20 at 23:33
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I think these are all good efforts and are all grammatical, though the phrase "by her pet name" sounds a little clumsy after the relative clause. I prefer your third option overall.

Although I don't know the context, I suspect the present perfect would be better in the relative clause:

  • It's rude to call a girl with whom I have only talked once by her pet name.

A couple of more natural suggestions:

  • It's rude to call a girl I've only talked to once by her nickname
  • It's rude to call a girl by her nickname when I've only talked to her once
  • It's rude calling a girl I've only talked to once by a nickname
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