I want to share a poem about LOVELINESS soon; of course the root word here is LOVE, and I got curious about the origins of this word we hear so often.
Everyone has a pretty good idea what the word LOVE means, though some people use it to season their discussions the way diners use pepper as a seasoning on food. I heard about a young woman getting a gentle reproof about this one day:
A young wife was talking to friends some item she liked, and enthusiastically gushed, “I just love it!”
An old grandma was among those listening and responded with some wise words: “Don’t love things. Love something that can love you back.”
And folks really get off course when they call it LOVE when it’s really infatuation or obsession:
A divorced and bitter woman, legally restrained from viciously stalking her ex and his new wife, sought the help of a psychiatrist. Explaining her obsession, she wailed, “But I love him! I can’t live without him.”
The psychiatrist bluntly replied, “That’s not love. That’s being a parasite.”
Love is one of the simplest and oldest in our English language. According to both dictionaries LOVE goes way…way…back — to the old English lufu, akin to the Old German luba. And this comes down, according to Lexico, “from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit: lubhyati, or “desires.”
Like ourselves, it has descended from the peoples who spread out after the biblical Tower of Babel episode. Perhaps, as the old grandma suggested, we should handle it more respectfully.
Image by sathyatripodi — Pixabay
Word Buds 