They say you shouldn't use the word 'hate' when referring to anyone at all. It's a strong word. I agree.
Hate basically says you can't forgive someone because you loathe the very fibers of their being, and there is nothing that can change your mind. In your eyes, there is nothing good about them. I admit I certainly don't hate anyone. 'Strongly dislike' comes to mind for a few people, but I couldn't possibly have enough spite toward someone to wish them eternal damnation.
But if we're so careful about using the word 'hate', why do we toss the word 'love' around so much?
- "Oooh, I love this top."
- "I love my new phone!"
- "I love smoothies."
The word 'love' is the exact opposite of hate. Love is the feeling you get in your heart when you can't live without someone, and you want to be around them all the time, and you feel like if anything, you'd spend eternity with them.
Why do we say we 'love' a shirt? What about that shirt makes your heart feel warm? Sure, you can like it, you can enjoy wearing it, you can feel good in it...but there's no love to be shared with fabric.
Why do we 'love' a phone? Shouldn't we be spending our love on people, not material possessions?
There's enough 'I hate this' in this world already. If I'm going to say 'I love this', I want to say it about things that deserve love. Like the beauty of creation, a newborn baby, my mother, a person I want to reach out to, etc.
Possessions don't deserve my love any more than people deserve my hate. The next time you say you "love" something, take a moment.
Do you think about how you use the word 'love'?
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Comments (26)
There are different degrees of "love" though in the English language there's really only one main word for "love" but there are different connotations to each one. You just have to realize it in context. You don't have to take it literally like "I want to bring this shirt to heaven with me and back and sleep with it and make sweet love to it...." Usually they are just expressions of affection. Just chill out, love is too difficult to come by -- you have to know what you're looking for before you criticise people for using a four-letter word.
Love is a vague word. It can mean a lot of different things. We're not tossing it around, we're using it by our own definition in the particular situation.
I do think about it a lot more now than I used to. I think it's one way satan uses to confuse people so they don't know what love really is....and it's working. I am very careful as to who I say "I love you" to. I don't say it unless I mean it. As for things, I'm working on saying, "I really like that" or something similar. I honestly think it's just another tool of satan to put love in the shadows. I'm not even sure what love is anymore, to be honest. I do know it's God. But that's all I know right now. Thanks for spawning us to think about this.
People just don't want to use any other word. :/
I love this post!
File under "Deficiencies in English, vol 12." (While we're at it, can we get a workable third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun?)
What the world needs now is.
actually, i agree with a former instructor of mine. the opposite of love is not hate... it's indifference.
very interesting post.. i think about how i use the word love and hate... hmm for me love is to hate at times.. when loving someone very strongly and you don't agree upon things.. it can turn into hate most of the time
Thanks so much for adding me!
I think the word "love" is one of the most powerful words of the English language (if not THE most powerful) and, as you state, the word is used far too casually and non-chalantly these days. Much like when people are ready for lunch or dinner and state that they are "starving", often it is of a great exaggeration.
Cheers!
The human heart is just waiting for any opportunity to squeal with delight! "Love" is a major squeal word!!
Give me a break!
In this context, the word "love" is just emphasizing satisfaction. It's a figure of speech!Nobody hears a person say "I hate spiders" and runs up exclaiming, "Hate is too strong a word! You don't hate spiders!"
Or should we all just say:
"Ooh, I am very visually stimulated by this top."
"I am highly satisfied with my new phone!"
"I greatly enjoy smoothies!"
If you don't like "tossing around" those two words, then don't! But that is your preference, so please don't chastize me for the way I choose to speak.
@Pass_the_Aura@xanga - It?
I agree that love has varying degrees, but I also think that everyone wants to know love and to experience it. Maybe that doesn't apply to saying that one "loves" an object or an idea. Maybe we want to have love in every aspect of our lives instead of mediocrity and simply 'liking' something. I hope that makes sense.
Saying you like something a lot doesn't give off the feeling of actually liking it a lot. It makes it seems as though it's second best.
I haven't learned how/when to use the word love until recently... I do not use it flippantly... I do not use it unless I sincerely mean it...
there's a reason why they say 'spread some love'. love your shoes. love your handphones. love you SO. xoxo. the degrees of love and hate may vary.
Culture. Â It's a cultural thing. Â Sooo sometimes I consider it, but honestly not very often. Â I think I would more if I was living in a culture where they had 13 different words for love...
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga -  "Ooh, I am very visually stimulated by this top..." Â
Literally falling off my chair laughing. Â :)
I "love" this topic! LOL. Just kidding. It's interesting because my wife from Munich used to say the words "I love you" lose their meaning in the U.S. because the word love is also used to express one's feeling toward a pair of shoes. She said "Ich liebe dich" (I love you in German) carries more weight. I didn't necessarily agree. I know if I love a woman and she knows it too.
and I will say the same thing I did when this entry was posted on datingish: you obviously don't know where to shop
we toss the word around today because we really don't know what love really is...
to suggest we love something is the idea that we will offer all we have to it... whatever that IT is... in the same way, when we love someone, we offer all that we have to that person regardless of fault or failures...
today, love is this overwhelming force of emotion and thus, we get it all wrong... what you fell out of love with your spouse which is why you "fell" in love with someone other than your spouse? Do you love your BMW more than your kids? You love your cellphone that much?
the author of this post poses a very interesting question and it did me good to think about it...
bravo...
@testubebaby@xanga - hee hee. actually, when I posted this, I sent it to Revelife and somebody else sent it to Datingish. ...or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, that was weeks ago.
@rachelserine@xanga - I wish we had something like that. Here under the English language, we can only really say "like", "really like", or "love", and those are incompetent!
@Hails - har har.
@proudmom87@xanga - It very well might be Satan! :\ but I do know it's partly because we're a little lazy with words in general. We don't stop to think.
@raiyaya@xanga - good thought. But I think by "spread the love" they mean more toward people.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - you're right on: "the opposite of love is indifference." I was going to say apathy...but they both fit.
I love everything my wife does and wears.
In English, we are headed more toward economy of language. I hope to be long gone before doublespeak becomes the new fad. At the same time, love as a word exists such that the meaning changes depending on who we are talking to and what we are talking about. I love my sister, but not the same way I love my boyfriend. And not the same way I love my dog. Also not the same way I love my friends. While I love all these things truly, I love them all in different ways. People use words however they want to. America is a free country.
If you disagree, that is fine. But no hastiness about denouncing the word love as it is used today.