lazeldes@wlcrjs.UUCP (Leah A Zeldes) (02/08/85)
>> ...In the Hungarian language there are two words for "love": >>one for familial or platonic love, and one for sexual love >> (i.e. the feeling that lovers have toward one another). > ...Ancient Greek also has more than one word for 'love' >It has three, one for familial(brotherly) love, one for 'platonic' love >and one for sexual love. >> I think that this lack of distinction in English has probably screwed up >>more people that the he/she problem. >> ...Would having two words for love create just as many problems? >>Am I overestimating the effect of language on behavior? Bear in mind that English defines "love" in all these ways, as well as "an extreme fondness for" -- "I just love pickled beets" -- and approval/liking of -- "I love your new dress." It also defines it as the loved one -- "Goodnight, love." And for that matter, "nothing," as in tennis -- "Six-love." Native speakers of English rarely confuse the meanings, with the possible exception of platonic vs. sexual, and then, usually, only when applied to non-family members. (If you say "I love you" to your mother, she doesn't take it sexually.) But this overlap works in some cases -- many people have sexual relationships in which they love the other platonically as well -- one can be a friend as well as a lover. We do have a word that conveys pure sexual affection -- "lust." "Love" implies a relationship. If people are so afraid to express affection that they won't use "love," they just have to be more verbose -- "I like you a lot," "I'm very fond of you," "I love you like a brother." -- Leah A Zeldes ...ihnp4!wlcrjs!lazeldes
hsu@cvl.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (02/11/85)
> > And for that matter, "nothing," as in tennis -- "Six-love." > This usage, of course, has a completely different derivation, and is in fact a mis-pronounciation by the British of the French word l'oeuf (egg, colloquially used to mean zero), and the rest is history. =Dave Hsu= "...very dangerous. You go first." (301) 454-4526 ARPA: hsu@cvl hsu@umd2 USnail: Computer Vision Laboratory CSNET: hsu@cvl Center for Automation Research BITNET: hsu@umd2 University of Maryland UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!hsu College Park, MD 20742