The Language of Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is much more than a holiday: it's a cultural package. There are special Valentine's traditions, Valentine's colors, and Valentine's knick-knacks, gifts, and cards. There is also a "Valentine's Day language", i.e. a subset of vocabulary used a lot in the weeks preceding and culminating on February 14th.

Here is a sampler of the language of Valentine's Day along with its linguistic baggage.

arrow: The arrow that pierces the valentine's loving heart derives from the same Indo-European root that gave us arcus, the Latin word for bow (cf. English arc and arch). In the Germanic languages, however, the word developed the meaning of "that which belongs to the bow", i.e. the arrow. The Modern English arrow derives directly from the Old Norse root *arw- .

chocolate: Scrumptious, sinful, endorphin-releasing chocolate derives from the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs: the Nahuatl xocolatl meant "bitter water" (from xococ "bitter" and atl "water"). As a result, at first, chocolate meant "chocolate drink", but now the word is applied to solid chocolate as well.

Cupid: The name of the winged Roman god of sexual desire derives from the Latin verb cupere (= to desire). Related forms in several Indo-European languages mean "to be agitated", "to steam", "to boil", which suggests, appropriately enough, that steamy agitation underlies erotic love. The English verb covet also derives from the Latin cupere.

heart: The heart, the protagonist of Valentine's Day, belongs to a widespread family of words that share the Indo-European root *kerd- as their ancestor. From *kerd- come the Greek kardia (cf. English cardiac and cardiology) and the Latin cor (cf. English cordial, concord, and courage). The Modern English heart derives from the Germanic descendant *kherton.