The Problem

The problem is with love--or, more specifically, the word love. Some are probably thinking to themselves that love is a perfectly nice word. I would agree with them. The problem, though, is overuse and--even worse--misuse. Let us begin our discussion with the following quote:

"Some people love their children. Other people love hot dogs. I don't think they're talking about the same emotion."

-Leeneh

No, they probably aren't. For some people, it isn't enough just to say that they like hot dogs. Therefore, they exaggerate for effect. This isn't that unusual. People do it in a number of ways. They might describe something as being "as big as a house," "as light as a feather," or "as scary as Michael Jackson." More often than not, these comparisons are not strictly accurate.¹ Most of these are rather innocent, but, in our case, these usages seem to detract somewhat from the effect of the word, love. After all, telling your girlfriend that you love her doesn't necessarily mean all that much when she's just heard you talking about how much you love "The Brady Bunch."

To make matters worse, some people don't really seem to understand the definition of the word, itself. How often have you heard teenagers use the word love in reference to someone they've known for approximately three hours? And, of course, let's not forget the disheveled women with black eyes, torn shirts, and slings on their arms, who sobbingly insist, "But he loooves meeee ... " To paraphrase everyone's favorite writer, this is obviously some strange usage of the word love that I was previously unaware of.

The end result, of course, is that the word love has almost entirely lost its effectiveness. This is a major problem for lovers attempting to communicate the extent of their feelings to their beloved and for writers attempting to write that powerful, emotional scene. So, what to do?

One of the traditional ways of increasing the word's effectiveness is to add modifiers. Thus, instead of saying, "I love you," a woman might say, "I love you a lot." This has been known to have a limited amount of success. However, the word love has been watered down to such an extent that few modifiers would be able to successfully convey the point that our theoretical female is trying to get across.

A slight twist on this is to use analogies in the form of similes and metaphors. Hence, a man might say, "My love for you is as big as a house" or "I love you as much as 'The Brady Bunch.'" However, the problem is so bad that even the analogies tend to be overused, quickly becoming cliché. This forces lovers to be ever-more-inventive. However, there should be no reason for your love to be "as slimy as an oyster." The word, itself, should be enough.

The Solution

The first proposal is the creation of a new word. Something that would serve in place of an exaggerated "like," without profaning the word love. We are currently beta-testing the word "molp." The hope, here, is that, instead of loving hot dogs, people will begin to molp them. Other people might molp dandelions or breakfast cereals.

If successful, this new word will help to solve the misuse problem. However, we are still left with those with shaky grasps on just what exactly the word was supposed to mean in the first place. I refer to those aforementioned naïve teenagers and abused spouses. This is a bit trickier. How do you go about teaching someone what love is? Unfortunately, I am unable to provide a satisfactory answer to that question at this moment in time. Research, however, is ongoing, and, with a bit of luck, we just might stumble onto a solution.