Mawgablog

I made a vow to myself while I was walking around Hackney, mumbling to myself about this and that – my personal liquidity crisis, fried chicken, sirens, traffic congestion, pollen and the range of things peculiar to E9 and E8 – and it popped into my head. I’d start a category here that is ‘Things I Adore’ and write about things I’m particularly fond of. One of them, and fittingly the first entry of its kind, is the word ‘adore’ itself.

I adore it because it’s such a warm, sumptuous way to describe fondness. When you ‘adore’ something or someone it’s so intimate, so close. It’s a hot chocolate emotion. It’s a just the right temperature feeling: it’s too hot to gulp but not so hot that it’s scalding. Adoring is energising. It’s not hackneyed like ‘love’ or flavourless as ‘like a lot’. It’s a strong, reassuring grip. It’s an embrace. It’s special.

To say the word ‘adore’ is equally rich. You say ‘ah-’ and the ‘dore’ is dammed by the ‘duh’ before the rest of the word and the emotion that goes with it comes cascading out, poured lovingly over its subject.

In a sense, it’s fabulously inclusive. It’s easily personalised by accent. Imagine it in a Bronx accent, or a cockney or Glaswegian or Jamaican accent. There are no airs and graces, but! But! It’s also exclusive. It’s thoughtful. It’s not used willy-nilly. You say it and you’re set apart, just a little bit.

Where does it come from? It’s only right to include a little etymology. According to the online etymology dictionary, it comes from the Old French ‘Aourer’, which means ‘to worship’. That itself comes from the Latin ‘Adorare’, which is to speak formally or ask in prayer. The roots are ‘ad’, or ‘to’, and ‘orare’ – to speak formally or pray. That, unsurprisingly, shares a root with the words orator and orate, which concern speaking formally to. There’s a crumb trail there all the way to an old Hittite word, ‘Aruwai’, which means ‘to bow’ or  ‘pay homage upward’ according to the Hittite Dictionary from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.

So, remember that, the next time you’re trying to verbalise that feeling, different from threadbare love, more grown up than fondness, more formal than digging or ‘feeling’. Adore ‘adore’.