Philosophers have been pondering the nature of love for millennia. Where does love come from? Is it divine? Why does it make us act so dopey? In the absence of useful answers to these questions, we thought we'd try a different, less ponderous approach.
Sweethearts, the Necco company's valentine candy, have been around for just over a century, entertaining folk with economical sayings on the topic of of love. Why not take a look at what they are saying? Maybe we could approach love's perennial questions in a vernacular, zeitgeist-ey sort of way. So we collated the messages from 2602 Sweethearts, and tallied them up. Here's what we found:
Love is positive
The majority of Sweetheart messages promote togetherness. Out of the 100 (exactly) messages, 84 are positive and 5 negative. 11 aren't either really.
But when love is negative, its pretty darn negative
The intensity of the few negative mesages averages 3.6 out of 4. Messages in total are 2.6.
For more analysis, go to the Tally page. All in all, the less ponderous approach didn't get very far with love's Big Questions. Maybe next year. But here are a few fun discoveries:
- All writing is upper case
- 5 messages involve a graphic
- 2 messages are only a graphic (smiley face, peace sign)
-
Biggest single word: AWE SOME (split into two lines)
- No question marks (GOT LOVE, for example)
- Sporadic use/non-use of the apostrophe (IM ME, I'M SURE)
- 3 messages are in a foreign language (TRES CHIC, AMORE, and VOGUE)
THE MEANING OF LOVE
v
v v