CULTURE

BE MINE!

By Laura Wunder and David Zerlin

Fri 10, Feb 2006

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: finding and tabulating the messages on those little Sweethearts from the Necco candy company.

In all, we collated the messages from some 2,602 Sweethearts and here is what we found:

* Love is positive. The majority of Sweetheart messages promote togetherness. Out of 100 messages (exactly), 84 are positive and 5 negative. 11 aren't either really.

* But when love is negative, it’s pretty darn negative. The intensity of the few negative messages averages 3.6 out of 4. Messages in general are only 2.6 on the intensity scale.

* Love is vehement. The most frequently recurring messages are more intense. The 10 least frequent messages average 1.9 out of 4 on the intensity scale, while the top 10 average 3.6.

Sweethearts have been around for just over a century, entertaining folk with their economical sayings on the topic of love. But when it comes to the Big Question of “What is Love”, they don’t really say much. (To see our complete tally, click HERE.)

How they say it though yields some interesting surprises. All Sweetheart messages are always UPPER CASE. Five include a graphic. Only two have no words (a smiley face and a peace sign.) The most frequently used phrase is “BE MINE” and the longest single word is AWESOME.

There are no question marks in Sweetheart love messages. Apostrophes are necessary in some (I’M SURE) but omitted in others (IM ME.) And love is, for the most part, conducted in English, except in three instances (TRES CHIC, AMORE and VOGUE.)

And finally, the rarest of rare sweethearts – should you be lucky enough to get one -- are four: I (HEART) U, NEAT, YOU RULE and the ever-popular LET’S READ.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love & Kisses to the following people who helped us count: Deb Ahlstrand, David Blum, Elizabeth Coffman, Katie Coffman, Nick Coffman, Robert Devendorf, Karen Dimond, Stacy Early, Janet Fasano, Ted Hardin, Jan Hughes, Shaz Kerr, Annie Knepler, Brett Legner, Sheelah Murthy, Jerry Post, Paul Racette, Rachel Saltz, Ellen Stanfield, John Schmidt, Martha Schulman, Vernon Tonges, Nadine Wichem and Michael Wunder.