Grammar of the Heart

Grammar of the Heart

Last week in the checkout line at Safeway, I saw a tempting display of candy hearts, those tiny confectionary messengers from childhood. I bought four boxes and enlisted my students in Understanding Grammar at Oregon State University in what may be the world’s first analysis of the grammar of candy hearts.

Here are the results of our study.

The most common grammatical construction on the candy heart is an imperative statement, a command: Be mine, Love me, Kiss me, Marry me, the hearts ordered, like little romantic commanders-in-chief.

The next most common construction was what could be called the seductive (often possessive) noun cluster: My man, My baby, My love, My girl, Lover Boy, Cutie Pie, Sweet talk. Perhaps these flattering nominal confections should precede the bossy imperative hearts. “Lover Boy” and “Cutie Pie” before “Love me,” “Kiss me.” We found only one seductive adjective cluster, a message with a Mo-Town beat: So fine...

One of the most puzzling messages was “Let’s read.” Huh? What, we wondered, is the romantic subtext of such a heart? Let’s read each other love poems? Let’s read instead of making out? Is this a break-up heart? Nobody breaks up on Valentine’s Day, do they? Do they??

There was one heart designed for the over-reaching suitor: Get Real. Very harsh for a valentine candy. They may need a tone-checker back at the candy factory.

The class noted a technological influence infiltrating candy(heart)land, visible in text-messages like URAQT and URA10. Would anyone over the age of fifteen even understand them?

What’s missing from the box? There were no Janet Jackson moments. Not a “You’re hot!” in the lot. The raciest message we found was “Got love,” which my students read as a punctuation-free, imperfect allusion to “Got Milk?”

Despite the intrusion of “Get Real” and “Let’s Read,” my class concluded that the tone of candy hearts is positive, even optimistic, and the messages are always in the present tense. So grab some candy hearts and live in the moment, Lover Boy, Cutie Pie. That’s the grammar of love.