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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Why are romantic crushes called crushes? When an adolescent gets a crush on a teacher, for instance, why is it called a crush? What's being crushed? I don't get it.
And, since nobody answered my question on the trifle thread about the charger--the plate that goes under the plate you actually take your food from---why are chargers called chargers? What's being charged?
And why is love so painful anyway? There's Cupid shooting arrows into people's hearts, right? That's piercing pain. And then crushes sound as though you're being flattened. Why not say, "I've been flattened" to mean you're in love? Or have a crush?
Anyway, I'm sure you AWADers will illuminate my mind on this topic of Pain in Love--crushes, arrows, etc.
Beating regards,
WordWoed
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Don't read if you like the NY Times Crossword..(3/13)
Today's crossword puzzle solutions was an Ambrose Peirce quote-- defining love as "a temporary insanity, curable by marriage."
Love is an opening.. we open our selfs up to others, physically and emotionally. and we let them become part of our very selves. when, we lose that person, through time, or death, or what ever reason, we lose that part of our selves we had invested with them. Love alwasy ends in pain.
all we can hope for, is that through loving, we gain more joy than we will lose.
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old hand
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old hand
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Per Helen's quote by Ambrose Bierce, I suggest that you check out the book, A Curmudgeon's Garden of Love by Jon Winokur. It's chock full of such insights!
On a more serious note, I am reminded of Promethius, whose loving act towards humankind got him chained to a mountain where he had his liver (not heart, per Greek notions) plucked by vultures and birds of that ilk.
One might also refute Helen's belief that love always ends in pain by remembering that we English speakers only have one word for several different phenomena. Read C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves for starters.
Finally, Dub Dub, if you're hurting, I am sorry to hear it! Been there, done that!
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veteran
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veteran
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pain in love ... crushes, arrows, etc.
"Falling" in love is the original metaphor, Wordwind, so perhaps "crush" takes its clue from this.
A "crush" is the junior version of a full-blown passion. Love blows us over, like a force of nature, while a "crush" merely weakens our knees.
Personally, I cannot believe that people smitten by a "crush" or Cupid's arrow experience any pain at all, de troy's observations notwithstanding. The arrow metaphor simply describes the suddenness and force of this uninvited, unexpected, emotion. Likewise "crush". It describes the nature of the impact, not the impact itself.
In the rush of a "crush", there is no thought of the pain which may follow.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Geoff,
Nope, not hurting at all, but just curious about the term "crush"--and then the related terms that partner loving with pain. Just an interesting phenomenom of our language and perception. Why is something that's so good--electrifying (there's pain again!! Ha!), adrenaline-charged, life-giving--coupled with words of pain, such as crush, arrows, falling, etc.? Just curious.
Best regards,
WeirdWind
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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The falling metaphor (if it is that) is widespread: to fall asleep, fall into error, fall into conversation with, fall in line with, fall a-weeping.
Fall here means simply pass into a state. This sense might have been a gradual change from a different sense (I can't get to the OED to check), which is why I doubt whether it's a metaphor.
As to pain, I can't see anything metaphorical in the collocation of pain and love. It's purely literal, most of the time.
... or is that just me?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A favorite word sixty years ago was "inferiority complex". When we first mature physiologically, we have not yet been able to test our power of achieving our goals, and we often are timid about testing our powers, for fear of a rebuff. So it is safer to admire from a distance.We often first select someone unattainable, because that means we have an excuse for not making an advance. But I have no idea why this was called "a crush".
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Why is love painful? Don't know,dear Dubdub, but t'was aye so, as the famous chansonsong has it:-
Plaisir d'amour ne dur qu'un instant,
The pleasures of love are momentary
Chagrin d'amour dur pour toute la vie
The pain of love is lifelong
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
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enthusiast
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Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.
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