<3 is in the air--or in NYT presses

[Victor Steinbok]

Just to clarify--at no point did I attempt to antedate the substitution
of "heart" for the symbol as a verb. I was simply noting that it has now
become ubiquitous and would be puzzling to the uninitiated. As for how
NYers read the phrase, allow me to express my doubts concerning Dan's
characterization--I've witnessed it stated otherwise, at least, in
moments of sarcastic wit, mocking the shirts worn by tourists, bumper
stickers on cars, etc.

VS-)

On 1/10/2011 5:03 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> I am not sure that anyone who grew up in NY during the establishment
> of the media campaign that generated "I ♥ NY" as well as a song that
> repeated the lyric "I love New York" many times could read it any way
> other than the song lyric
>
> DanG.
>
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Jeff Prucher<jprucher at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>> Anyone wanting to antedate this usage should search out the 1984
>> spoken-word/comedy album "I Gotta Go" by Ian Shoales (of Duck's
>> Breath Mystery
>> Theater fame), which includes a track titled "Hearts on
>> Bumperstickers". It's
>> basically a rant against the use of the heart symbol on
>> bumperstickers, and he
>> explicitly pronounces the symbol as "heart" throughout. After
>> listening to this
>> track roughly a zillion times, it became impossible for me (and
>> several of my
>> friends) to read "I ♥ NY" as anything other than "I heart NY". Â
>> (Antedaters
>> beware: Shoales has released at least one other album with the same
>> name which
>> doesn't include the relevant track. He also released a book of the
>> same name; I
>> don't know whether it includes the relevant piece or not.)
>>
>> Jeff Prucher

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