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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The Google Zeitgeist is a collection of top search terms from around the web world. The top “What is…” question posed to Google in Canada and the States in 2011 was What is Love?. If this is not a sign that the web itself is becoming self-aware, and if it’s not a song by Justin Bieber, then maybe it’s a sign that adolescent boys are no longer the dominant demographic on the internet.
Ok, so … what is love? Harlan Ellison crassly suggested that it ain’t nothin’ but sex misspelled. Here’s a similar take that is more a proximate than an ultimate explanation: love is oxytocin.
This reductive view is nowhere near the whole picture, it goes without saying. But recent work has shown that not only is the hormone oxytocin associated with the induction of labour, and development of a stronger bond between mother and newborn, it also plays a role in romantic attachment (pair bonding), development of trust, ability to maintain a social network, and the responses of envy, gloating and schadenfreude. No wonder some think it is toxic. The fact that an injection of oxytocin can make voles tie the love-knot induces David Pearce’s belief that “biotechnology will make us smarter, happier and just possibly nicer” through genetic manipulation to produce greater quantities of love and harmony hormones.
Oxytoxin is evil stuff. It’s an evil hormone that a woman’s body produces when she has sex and the more orgasms she has the more of the freaking stuff courses through her traitorous body.
Comment 1: Perhaps he needs a dose of oxytoxin. I think that’s what most men lack…all they need is a dose of that..
Comment 2: Perhaps oxytoxin is the poison in which cupid dips the arrow tips…and the older the man, the thicker his skin.
http://didisignupforthis-julio.blogspot … moron.html
Intraventricular oxytoxin induces yawning and penile erection in rats
http://baillement.com/melis-ragiolas/ox … iolas.html
Last edited by David Bird (2011-12-21 11:25:08)
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I was sure someone had posted this long ago, but I find no evidence at all. Getting old.
On those rare occasions when I hear a non-scientist utter this word, I think the “toxin” pronunciation is neck and neck with the original in frequency.
A lecturer in the English Dept. at one of the places I went to school always used to refer to puberty as “adolescent hormonal poisoning”—a perspective not that far from the one implicit in oxytoxin.
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I hadn’t realized how common the word “oxytocin” was until you brought it to my attention. I’ve seen twice in the last week. Perhaps it’s the holidays.
Today’s Dilbert: http://www.dilbert.com/2011-12-31/
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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