I used the above emoji in an email to a friend. But then I felt a bit remiss. Such a large emotion to squeeze into such a small means of expression.<\/p>\n
I found myself pondering the gradual degradation of our use of language to express our affections for one another. There was a time when people would pen entire sonnets to express such thoughts.<\/p>\n
The work of writing a sonnet creates its own ecosystem of emotional value. Rather than simply dash something off, you need to put time and care into the crafting of a sonnet, choosing with care the use of rhyme and meter that will best express your thought.<\/p>\n
So I decided to face down four centuries of linguistic devolution and unroll the simple “<3\" back up to the level of a full Shakespearean sonnet. Below is what I ended up sending to my friend. The effort was much appreciated.\n\n\n
\n A pair of symbols side by side I see
\n Which seem to speak of something “Less than Three.”
\n Yet other happy thoughts may lurk within,
\n Analysis is called for — let’s begin!<\/p>\n
“Less than Three” — not less than Four or Five,
\n What other fine constraints might we derive?
\n First let’s not be negative, insist
\n That Zero is the first upon our list.<\/p>\n
But Zero — what is left when all is gone
\n Would leave us nothing positive — move on.
\n Yet One will never do. It has been shown
\n That happiness is never found alone.<\/p>\n
So now I see the symbols speak of Two:
\n The Love you have for me, and mine for you.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I used the above emoji in an email to a friend. But then I felt a bit remiss. Such a large emotion to squeeze into such a small means of expression. I found myself pondering the gradual degradation of our use of language to express our affections for one another. There was a time when … Continue reading “<3\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20059"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20066,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059\/revisions\/20066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}