Topic > Word Love Essay - 716

Love is perhaps the most used but also the most ambiguous word in the English language. In modern culture, it penetrates almost every corner of public and private life, but if you were to ask even three different people its meaning, there would probably be discontinuities between the answers. While it is possible to define the word “love” by how it works grammatically, understanding its full meaning or lack thereof requires a deeper examination. Love is used as both a noun and a verb in modern English, producing several subcategories such as action, feeling, or even person. By analyzing each of the different applications of the word “love,” you can come to a clearer understanding of what it means and how it can be applied in everyday life. “Loving” someone can mean caring deeply about them. Likewise, it can mean that you admire, exhort, or hold another person in high esteem. Love for your pet and love for your spouse are understood as two very different types of love, yet in English we use the same word for both. CS Lewis revealed four different types of love in his book “The Four Loves” in 1960, however, the professor of modern sociology and politics at Cambridge, Roman Krznaric, goes even further, identifying six words for “love” as used by the ancients Greeks. In his book How Should We Live, Krznaric traces the English word to its Greek origins, reproducing “Agape”, “Eros”, “Ludus”, “Philautia”, “Philia” and “Pragma” love, each with its own operation unique (“The ancient Greeks '...”). The statement "I love you" is interpreted in different ways in modern language, but what kind of love is it? Is it the casual love of Ludus, the sexual love of Eros, or the unconditional love of Agape? The fluidity of modern English translation has made the distinction increasingly difficult