‘Luv’ Will Find a Way in London

I am dismayed by a clipping from the Manchester Guardian reporting that a women’s committee in London has condemned the use of the word love as a casual endearment between persons who are not lovers, nor even acquainted.

I say this dismays me because one of my pleasant memories of our London holiday, some years ago, is of being called “love” by barmaids and other women, young and old, with whom I came in contact.

This disarming, tentatively affectionate term is in wide use, at least among the English working classes; it seems to be harmless; it carries no sexist undertones.

It seems to me I first encountered this usage in the British film comedies that were so popular in the 1950s and 1960s (“Carry On Nurse” and its offspring); and was delighted, on my first trip to England, to find it verified in the street.

I heard it used most poignantly on our first morning in London. I had read at breakfast that it was the day of Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, and we walked over toward Westminster Abbey. Policemen were holding back a crowd across the corner from Big Ben, so we stayed there, expecting to see someone important come by. All the remaining royalty in Europe were said to be attending the rites.

My wife was standing in front of a short, plump Englishwoman who was trying to peer over her shoulder. Soon a caisson bearing Mountbatten’s coffin came into view. It was followed by a black Rolls-Royce limousine in which Queen Elizabeth rode beside the Duke of Edinburgh. Facing them on a pull-down seat was the Prince of Wales in Royal Navy blue.

My wife tried to lower her shoulder, so the little Londoner could see. When the limousine had passed, she turned and said, “Did you see the queen?” To which the woman answered, “No, luv, I’ve never seen any of them.” She sounded disappointed, but resigned, as if an ordinary subject mustn’t expect to see the queen in one lifetime.

There was something touching and forgiving in her use of luv , which I have spelled that way because I have often seen it spelled that way, and because it implies that in that context the word does not literally mean love or lover .

In response to the committee’s injunction, the Guardian acknowledged the point of its concern: “Familiar language can be as infuriating as a pinch, nudge--or for a man--a long, lingering handshake or unwanted arm round the shoulder, when it comes from someone you don’t know very well.”

It suggested, though, that the dispute was regional. In Yorkshire, for example, it argued, any anti-love campaign would meet with “general incomprehension.”

It is a question of north versus south, the Guardian said. “North of the Trent (where the Midlands term duck starts to die out), ‘love’ is as innocent a piece of language as ‘Morning’ or ‘Hello.’

“One of the first little culture shocks for the immigrant from down South (although actually it’s too pleasant to be termed a shock), is being called ‘love’ by delightful young ladies, burly men, the lot.”

The Guardian quotes Dr. Clive Upton of Leeds University’s Survey of English Dialects as saying: “It did rather rock me on my heels when I was first called ‘love’ by a large, male bus conductor. But you very soon realize that it’s a common practice here.”

I might be offended, not to say alarmed, if a New York taxi driver were to call me “love,” but I would not be in the least offended if I were to be called “love” by delightful young ladies, or old ladies, for that matter. It would be like being called “dearie” by one of those weather-beaten old grannies who wait tables in old-fashioned delicatessens.

Like the Guardian, I don’t condemn the women’s committee for its vigilance against sexist language, and perhaps there would be more menace and a hint of sexual harassment in a male executive who called a female employee “love.”

But it seems to me that we are becoming increasingly rude, distant and hostile in America, and perhaps it might improve our relations with one another if we used harmless endearments now and then to indicate our desire to be friendly. It’s better than shooting one another on the freeway.

Why don’t we just say luv?