VALENTINE - A Preview (comments welcome)

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Dr. Goodword
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VALENTINE - A Preview (comments welcome)

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:38 am

• Valentine •


Pronunciation: væ-lên-'tayn

Part of Speech: Noun, Verb

Meaning: 1. The name of St. Valentine. 2. A gift or card sent or given to a sweetheart of loved one on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, a day that celebrates love. 3. The sweetheart or loved one to whom a St. Valentine's Day card gift is given.

Notes: The verb, to valentine, means "to serenade or court", used mostly to refer to male birds singing their mating songs. This is the only relative of this lovely word. The verb isn't capitalized but the noun always is because it has yet to escape its eponym, St. Valentine.

In Play: Although the range of this Good Word is rather limited, tomorrow you will hear it a lot, as candy and flower sales surge: "Mommy, I got 33 Valentines in school today." (The sentimental meaning of the day dawns on us later in life.) I still like the verb, since its meaning is rather obvious; "They say, Jasper is seriously valentining Ida Claire these days."

Word History: February 14 originally was a Roman feast day. It was adapted by the Church to a celebration of Roman priest of the 3rd Century, St. Valentine, who was killed during the persecution of Christians by Claudius II. The love connection is based on the medieval assumption that February 14 is the first day of mating season for birds. As Chaucer noted in Parliament of Foules (1381): "For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make." (For this was on Saint Valentine's day when every bird comes there to choose his mate.) That doesn't mean that St. Valentine's day is for the birds, though. Everyone here at The Lexiteria hope that each and everyone of you find this a very fragrant and chocolaty day.
• The Good Dr. Goodword

Apoclima
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Postby Apoclima » Sun Feb 13, 2005 4:20 pm

I received the most beautiful St Valentine"s Day poem from a long time woman friend who moved to Honduras. We used to sing a lot together and make up songs in our college days!

Will you be my valentine?

Should I wonder from afar
just how many hearts there are
beating like my own, in time
searching for that perfect rhyme

Would it be so hard to say
that no one else can ever play
chords upon my own, so well
That no one else could ever tell

In harmony and far away
I thought of just one friend to say
always and forever dear
no one else need ever hear

The rhythm of a song so long
so deep and ever strong
I sing with only one divine
My only forever valentine

Happy Valentine's!
Only you can make me rhyme!

I love you.

J.

I hope you enjoy it!

Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck

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Valentine

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:04 pm

I did, indeed, Apo. Thanks for sharing it--even though it did leave me a bit envious.
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KatyBr
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Re: Valentine

Postby KatyBr » Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:18 pm

I did, indeed, Apo. Thanks for sharing it--even though it did leave me a bit envious.
I'm jealous too., I haven't inspired love poetry since I was a blonde. sigh.

Katy

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Postby tcward » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:44 pm

Famous quotes about love...

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.
-Sappho

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
-Voltaire (1694-1778)

A bell is not a bell until you ring it; A song is not a song until you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay; Love is not love until you give it away.
-Oscar Hammerstein II

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
-Henry Van Dyke

Where love reigns there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.
-Carl Gustav Jung

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and probably be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safely in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become impenetrable, irredeemable . . . The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love, is hell.
-C.S. Lewis

During my youth, Love will be my teacher; in middle age, my help; and in old age, my delight.
-Kahlil Gibran

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
-Lao Tzu


And for a touch of humor...

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
-Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
-Charlie Brown

:wink:

-Tim

Apoclima
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Postby Apoclima » Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:57 pm

Wondeful gems, Tim! Imitation is the most genuine form of flattery! So if I may?
"My bounty is as deep as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite. "
William Shakespeare
"When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew."
William Shakespeare
Happy St. Valentine's Day to Everyone!

Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck

KatyBr
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Love is....

Postby KatyBr » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:25 am

No one is more attractive than when they are in the blush of love.

Katy

Iterman
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Postby Iterman » Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:04 am

Just to give GW an international touch I can tell you that Valentine's day is remembered also in Japan and Sweden but there and here the catchword isn't poetry and cards but chocolate. In fact, in Japan the whole thing has in a way got overboard and has become giri choco (giri meaning obligation, duty) in the sense that "every" male in the work place expect a bar of chocolate this day. In Sweden, it is a very recent phenomena. My mother's birthday was February 14th but as long she lived I cannot recall any connection to St Valentine. So I wonder how this special day for the benefit of candy makers, came in to our country. It's hard to see the Japanese connection but easy to point to America.

Apoclima
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Postby Apoclima » Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:17 am

What a Romantic you are, Iterman!

Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:10 am

«Girichoko» - that sounds fantastic, iterman, and best of all is that it's the chaps that get it ! Pity this most charming custom had not yet seen the light of day when I lived in Tokyo....

Otherwise, my contact with girichoko is at second hand and connected with another date : as my dear friend, and collaborator, a professor of Chinese literature from an Eastern European land, (and Canada as well) relates, the custom was that every 8 March (International Women's Day) the Party secretary would come 'round with a box of chocolates to every woman at the Institute. But now, of course, they have Capitalism instead....

Henri
Last edited by M. Henri Day on Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

KatyBr
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Girichoko

Postby KatyBr » Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:30 pm

we have Girichoko at my house, YAY!

I'm the one who gets the xchoko tho'.
"Just step away from the chocolate and nobody gets hurt!"

Katy
my hubby doesn't much care for it anyway. He has a real love-thing going for red meat!

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:46 pm

My mind boggles at the fantasy of the Party secretary distributing boxes of maso, as I believe the term for meat is in Czech, on 8 March ! (If I remember my favourite literary work, which deals with the military adventures of a certain Josef Svejk, correctly, «maso» is also the name of a card game, popular among soldiers (during WW I, at least), in which players get to slap each other on certain apt portions of the body, as a penalty. But then we've dealt with the wonts of soldiers on another thread....)

Henri

Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:20 am

And from our greatest writer ever:

Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver;
É ferida que dói e não se sente;
É um contentamento descontente;
É dor que desatina sem doer.
É um não querer mais que bem querer;
É solitário andar por entre a gente;
É nunca contentar-se de contente;
É cuidar que se ganha em se perder;
É querer estar preso por vontade;
É servir a quem vence, o vencedor;
É ter com quem nos mata lealdade.
Mas como causar pode seu favor
Nos corações humanos amizade,
Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?

And a rough translation:
Love is fire that burns without being seen;
It's a wound that hurts but is not felt;
It's a discontented contentment;
It's a pain that is maddening without hurting;
It'a "no wanting" more than "wanting";
It's lonely to walk among people;
It's never to content oneself from being content;
It's striving to win when you lose;
It's wanting to be a captive by your own volition;
It's serving who wins, the winner;
It's having loyalty to the one who kills us.
But how can its favor cause
In human hearts friendship,
If so contrary to itself is love itself.

Luís Vaz de Camões
Languages rule!

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:40 pm

I've got to learn Portuguese when (if) I retire ! Thanks for Camoês' poem !...

Henri

PS : Pardon the «ê» ! I am unable to write an «e» with a tilde on my keyboard, and the «Alt +» system I generally use to write diacritics doesn't, alas, provide any aid....

Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:29 pm

I'm glad to know I (or he) got you interested, Henri. You can count on me for anything you need.

Brazilian dude
Languages rule!


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