This
day started out all about romantic love, but to some extent has
spread to include friendship and love of family—think of all the
school children exchanging funny Valentine cards, parents giving kids
boxes of candy hearts (or
heart headbands), and kids giving them huge paper hearts with
mushy sentiments scrawled on them.
Now
lots of sorta-kinda holidays have sprung up on this day to go along
with Valentine's Day. One is International Quirkyalone Day, which
encourages self-love along with all the other sorts of love. There is
also Race Relations Day (let's all love each other), and National
Donor Day (show your love through organ and blood donation) and even
World Marriage Day. There are some days that encourage us to live
heart-healthy lives and to study heart diseases – National Women's
Heart Day, National Have a Heart Day, and World Congenital Heart
Defect Awareness Day are all today.
Where
and when did the heart symbol come from?
Various
ancient cultures thought that the heart, rather than the brain, was
the source of thought and emotion. The ancient Egyptians, for
example, thought this. That is why, when ancient Egyptians took great
care to preserve all that is important in the human body during the process of mummification, they put the liver, intestines, lungs, and
stomach inside canopic jars; they left the heart inside the body so
that it could be weighed in judgement; and the brain was pulled out
through the nose and thrown away!
We
aren't certain why the European heart symbol looks so different from
a human heart. Some people have speculated that it was copied from
the leaves of a silphium plant, or from the shape that swan necks
make during their courtship ritual.
Sometimes,
these days, the word heart and the heart symbol are used to
mean “to like or love.” An example is, “I heart NY,” which
is the same thing as saying, “I love New York.” The Oxford
Dictionary says that this usage may be the only example in the
English language in which a usage came to be through T-shirts and
bumper stickers!
For
more on Valentine's Day, check out this earlier post.
Also
on this date:
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