I'm unpersuaded that it's a term that says anything we couldn't say before. At most, it seems to function as a superlative: It wasn't a just crush, there was limerance!I'm getting that impression too. I've read the thread through and can't see that it's anything more than another word for "lovesick" or "lovestruck". Those words aren't going anywhere soon, so I'm putting "limerence" down as a junior synonym.
"Part of loving another person is the element of time--of change--and our ability to love constantly, even increasingly, as the object of our love grows and changes and surprises us, or even confounds us.He's not a mefite and not particularly active on other forums. In fact, we both started using the term around 2003, when we met in a Philosophy of Sex & Love class, and after college, when we wrote letters to one another and he navigated love quandaries that he was experiencing, we used it often. How else can one delineate the evolution from one type of mutual feeling to another? It's the perfect term for it. Maybe thinking so makes me a special snowflake (and we are certainly over-educated show-offs), but words are useful. Precise words, even better.
The truth is that I wish I had met Phoebe and Jordan before they met one another. I wish I had seen them when their dreams for one another were new. I think that watching their love take root and bloom must have been like watching the sun rise to illuminate a landscape--making its beauty more apparent, more defined, and more real with subtle, gradual light. . . .
Phoebe wrote to me to warn me about love. She wrote: 'Part of loving is dependence, which is a weakness, and relinquishing control, which is scary, too. You cannot be a rock. And rocks are cool. And you cannot be an island.'
But Phoebe isn't a rock. Jordan is not an island. Phoebe and Jordan are independent, self-sufficient, and brilliant people who are set aglow in the light of an unfathomable--love. They have been lucky enough to find one another and potent enough to fall in love-to let that first limerence evolve into the enduring romance we're celebrating today."
He's not a mefite and not particularly active on other forums. In fact, we both started using the term around 2003, when we met in a Philosophy of Sex & Love class, and after college, when we wrote letters to one another and he navigated love quandaries that he was experiencing, we used it often. How else can one delineate the evolution from one type of mutual feeling to another? It's the perfect term for it. Maybe thinking so makes me a special snowflake (and we are certainly over-educated show-offs), but words are useful. Precise words, even better."Limerence" doesn't seem all that precise. Even in this thread alone, some have said that it must be a shared feeling, others that it can be non-mutual. Many have said (including me) that they don't really understand what the word means, and that there are already words for similar things. Some dictionaries don't even have the word. It seems like we're replacing a wealth of words for talking about love with a single ambiguous term. Narrowing a wide "livedness" of language with a bookword that few really grasp isn't progress. Instead it's a real step backward, rubbing out and breaking up our shared language for no overall gain.
It is precise. It refers to the sexually and emotionally charged feelings one experiences at the beginning of a romantic relationship. Note that this is different from a "crush" because no romantic relationship is necessitated for a crush ("crush" is also somewhat pejorative, usually used to refer to teenagers, sometimes used to refer to teenagers' feelings about Hollywood actors). I'd agree that the feelings don't have to be mutual, but they exist as a result of an interaction. It's best understood when contrasted with the mellower types of lasting love that may or may not arise out of it. My husband and I both once experienced limerence; we're still in love, but we're no longer riding high on the wave of chemically-induced emotions.No it's not precise. You say that the feelings don't have to be mutual. Another commenter here says they do. That smacks of imprecision and ambiguity. Is the other commenter wrong? And if they are, doesn't their wrongness suggest that the word is hard to understand, thus another source of ambiguity?
Words can have precise multiple meanings. Some people who use words might also be wrong.Hahahaha! A word is precise yet has multiple meanings! Are you just defending this word for devilment now? (And I notice you're not actually willing to say that the other commenter is definitely wrong. Why?)
And if it is? Sometimes you want a word that is more clinical than colloquial, particularly when a word like "lovestruck" has with it negative connotations (like "crush," it's often used dismissively) or feels dated. It's okay to have multiple terms for the same thing.So it does mean "lovestruck"? Thank you! That's very kind of you to admit.
Jehan, it seems perfectly clear that you know what the word means at this point. It's fine if you don't like it; that doesn't mean that there aren't reasons to use it, though.Actually, I don't know what the word means precisely. Yet I'm told that the word is good because it is precise. It seems as though the folk who like the word "limerence" are deceiving me, or deceiving themselves. There's a weird undercurrent in English language use, which is almost classist, where existing and known words are deprecated and torn down, replaced with obscure and "educated" words which are held to be superior. I'm sure that's not the case here, as most people on Metafilter are pretty reflective about their prejudices.
There's a weird undercurrent in English language use, which is almost classist, where existing and known words are deprecated and torn down, replaced with obscure and "educated" words which are held to be superior.
We can thank Star Wars for ruining that word for everyone. I can't possibly be the only one who hears Darth Vader's theme play when I hear that word...
For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.
It doesn't particularly offend me but it does set off my "short-lived slang" detector. So does "cis".
It is insulting and incorrect to use the term 'USian'. The proper demonym is 'American'. Calling us 'USians' is tantamount to Republicans calling the Democratic Party the 'Democrat' party. Or linux users referring to Microsoft as 'Micro$oft'. Or that hoary old favorite from the zine age, 'Amerikkka'.Honestly, this is the first time I'd ever run into people thinking it's *insulting* to call UnitedStatesers "USians" instead of "Americans." And I don't think your comparisons hold, since "USian" isn't insulting but simply a more specific description, like "cisgender" (which I also use). But I'll try to cut back on MetaFilter since people are so unhappy with it.
Por el supuesto impacto sobre Nicaragua, mucho interés ha despertado quién será el próximo presidente estadounidense, si el republicano Mitt Romney o el mandatario Barack Obama.Granted, that's political, but a quick search of Americano in the same paper only turned it up talking about the Americas as a continent, and people complaining about Americans misusing the term.
This song was first recorded in 2005 when John Linnell was challenged by the radio show The Next Big Thing to create a song using the almost-forgotten words contrecoup, craniosophic, and limerent. [source]"Contrecoup, on the rebound /
posted by solarion at 4:01 AM on November 19, 2012