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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Making Hay

The thoughts that confront one on a long plane journey (I am en route to Las Vegas). I'd be fascinated if anyone knows the origins of the phrase 'making love'. I looked in my etymological dictionary and it doesn't really handle phrases, so I'm lacking a reliable authority.

For me, the phrase is very different from the word 'sex'. It seems to me that the word 'make' plays a similar role here as in 'making hay' - not that something is being created but rather that something is being organised to new effect. You can just 'do' sex, but to make love, you've got to have love to make!

Just like hay, all the small joys of the relationship you have with your lover lay there scattered on the ground and need gathering together into a love-stack. Yes, it takes energy and skill - heavy, sweaty work, and there's a knack to it. Much more importantly it takes the right field. The more love there's been, the more love there is to make and the finer the result. There's no point just showing up there with your intent and your pitchfork - you need to have previously, lovingly grown the crop and harvested it. And hence 'Fields of Gold' speaks of patience more than of passion...

November 24 update: Taran suggests the phrase looks typical of Native American speech:

I can almost see some pioneers at the Thanksgiving table with the braves, and someone asks the Chief what he is going to do later. A religious interpreter would probably have said "Make Love" as opposed to "copulate with squaw"

and is also hooked on researching the phrase, so with two of us tracking maybe we'll find the origins.

November 25 update: Spurred on further by Taran, I found that the Random House Word of the Day had been 'Make Love' back in 1996 and the writer suggests:

The original sense of the phrase make love is 'to court; woo' ... When seen through the lens of modern usage, these examples can seem strange; Jane Austen in particular seems much more lively than we'd normally expect ... The expression make love is probably a translation of the French faire l'amour or the equivalent Italian far l'amore.

Not only does that sound plausible, it also supports my original posting so I'm happy, even if it doesn't say where the French and Italians got the phrase!

posted at 3:31 PM (UK) | |