Yeah, “Love is a Four-Letter Word, but should it be?”

Daily writing prompt
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?


If I could ban one word from existence, what would it be? Love. Yeah, that’s right—love’s gotta go. It’s too damn vague, like a one-size-fits-all sweatshirt that fits nobody right. The Eskimos have some plus fifty words for snow—meanwhile, we’re stuck with this single, overstretched syllable to cover everything from banging your significant other to hugging your kid, saluting your country, or high-fiving your brother. It’s lazy. Watering it down like that cheapens the whole deal. If we had to pick a precise word for each kind of love, we’d cut through the mushy confusion and give it some backbone. Imagine: no more “I love you” debates where you’re wondering if it’s a grenade or a greeting card. Clarity, people—let’s make love mean something again.

6 responses to “Yeah, “Love is a Four-Letter Word, but should it be?””

  1. I love—wait, maybe I should say I deeply appreciate it—this take! It’s a strange but brilliant perspective. Do you think having more precise words for love would change how we express emotions, or would people still misuse them? After all, we have words like ‘admire’ and ‘cherish,’ yet we still overuse ‘love.’

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    1. Exactly! Love is the Swiss Army knife of emotions—handy, but frustratingly imprecise. We have ‘adore,’ ‘revere,’ ‘treasure,’ yet still default to ‘love’ like a universal remote that barely works. Maybe if we had a richer vocabulary for it, we’d stop tossing ‘love’ around like confetti and start using words that actually fit. Or maybe, being human, we’d just misuse those too. After all, we turned ‘literally’ into ‘figuratively’—why wouldn’t we do the same with ‘cherish’ and ‘admire’? Language evolves, but human nature? That’s the real wildcard.

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  2. Love !🥺I would like to ban all the negative words which uninspire us

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  3. “LA gaps!” Ban the word love?! The audacity! I mean I understand what you mean but boy is that title making me want to put on high Waist gloves and huff while tossing a hand on the floor.

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    1. Mission accomplished! Thanks for the comment. Gloves on. lol

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  4. Most overused word in the English language. I agree

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