Valentine's Day

For the first time in my recollection (of over 30 years of marriage) I will be apart from my sweetheart on Valentine’s Day. Before a collective “awww” breaks forth, I should interject that my wife and I have chosen not to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the traditional way. We avoid going out to dinner that evening and don’t do cards except for birthdays anymore. Flowers and candy are purchased before and after the holiday, rather than on it, if at all. We prefer to replicate the sentiments of the holiday more regularly and more often than once a year.

That being said, we would at least osculate on Valentine’s Day were we together, and haptic occurrences may send a frisson through us even after all these years. And so begins today’s blog. Osculate, haptic, and frisson; good words for the day.

Osculate is a word I remember latching onto at least as a teen, if not before that important age. It came to English in the 1650s, from the Latin word osculum, which means “kiss”. Literally translated, osculum means “little mouth”, being the diminutive form of the word os, which means mouth. “Little mouth” is a way to describe a pucker, or the beginning of the most innocuous form of kissing. The primary definition my dictionary has is “to come into close contact or union” but I’ve never heard it used except in reference to kissing.

BLOGGER EXTRA: SIDE STORY ON THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE PHRASE “FRENCH KISS”

French kissing, according to the Times of India online, "The french kiss was first known as maraichanage, a term to descrive the prolonged, deep, tongue kiss practiced by the Maraichins, inhabitants of Brittany, France. It dates from at least the 1920s." Given the choice between trying to pronounce maraichanage and French kissing, it is no wonder that we've chosen to call it French kissing. Maraichanage is so obscure that the 12 (yes, only 12) references on Yahoo are similar to what the Times of India wrote. Although, I must admit, I did not read the four entries that were in Croatian or Hungarian.

According to Wikipedia, "In France, it is referred to as baiser amoureux ("love kiss") or baiser avec la langue ("kiss with the tongue"), even if in past times it was also known as baiser florentin ("Florentine kiss"). In French slang, a French kiss is called a patin (ice skating shoe) or a galoche (wooden-soled shoe). Doing a French kiss is referred to rouler un patin ("roll a skate", as in ice skating shoe) or rouler une pelle ("roll a shovel") or s'emballer in slang.”

Now, back to our blog:

According to dictionary.com the word haptic is an adjective meaning "relating to or based on the sense of touch." (The noun haptics refers to "the branch of psychology that investigates cutaneous sense data, whatever that means. But it sounds like an interesting course of study.) It has been used in English since the 1890s, and comes from the Greek word haptikos, which means "able to come into contact with". It is similar (I would maintain it is not synonymous, but that's another blog) to tactile and tangible.

The final word for today is frisson. It is what Chris Matthews felt listening to Barack Obama speak during the 2008 elections. It came to English in 1777 directly from the French, and has the suggested pronunciation of "free-sohn" or "free-sawn" to maintain the French sound. It means shiver or thrill, and came to French in the 12th century from the Latin word frigere. Frigere means "to be cold" and is the word from which we get our word frigid.

It is understandable that a shiver (like that which being cold creates) can link the thrilling word frisson with the other end of the romantic spectrum, frigid. But such is the world of etymology.

Have a great Valentine's Day.