'heart' (vb. trans) makes it into OED!?

Have you no ♥?

Mar 26th 2011, 14:20 by R.L.G. | LONDON

MOST of the attention about the Oxford English Dictionary's recent additions have focused on the internet initialisms that they chose: LOL, OMG and the like. This is such non-news I wasn't even going to blog it, the responses were so predictable: grouches calling it embarrassing, dictionary-makers and descriptivists saying that this is exactly what dictionaries are for. This script was written at least as long ago as 1961, when Webster's Third included "ain't", and yet people never tire of it. Maybe it's just a comfort thing. Points go to Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post for at least trying to say something new: "It's like Yoda trying to sext you." Unfortunately, Ms Petri's wrong on the facts: "The Oxford English Dictionary...is supposed to have dignity." No, it's supposed to collect the words people use, and publish them with their definitions and histories. This is why it includes just about every rude and ugly word you can think of and some you can't. I just tried to stump it with some highly filthy slang terms I wasn't sure the OED people had gotten round to. It turns out they have.

I did decide to blog because I was briefly confused by one piece of what seemed to be genuinely surprising news: that the dictionary had included an entry for ♥, pronounced "heart", and defined as a transitive verb meaning "to love". That would be weird—what other pronounceable symbols might be included?  But that's apparently not the case. There is no headword for ♥.  The dictionary merely included a new sense of "heart" under that word, not the symbol. People have been writing "heart" as a transitive verb for a thousand years (meaning roughly "to hearten"), and in this new sense for a while. The entry includes these citations:

    [1983    Associated Press (Nexis) 16 Nov.,   From Berlin to the Urals, teen-agers wear T-shirts reading, ‘Elvis’, ‘Always Stoned’, and ‘I (heart) New York’.

    1984    About Helmet Visor Screws in net.cycle (Usenet newsgroup) 26 June,   Joe ‘I heart my dogs [sic] head’ Weinstein.

    1986    Daily Collegian (Pennsylvania State Univ.) 14 Feb. 2/3,   I just want to say to my Bunny Boo I Heart you Kathleen. 

    1998    Houston Chron. 10 May (Chronilog section) 7/1,   I think he's so cute. I heart him to bits.

    2003    Time Out N.Y. 7 Aug. 77/1   If you heart dance like DJ Scott does, then hie thee down to this little drink spot tonight.

    2009    A. Ham et al. Middle East (Lonely Planet) (ed. 6) 141/1   We heart the brownies (E£4).

    2010    Observer 18 July 13/4,   I hearted Take That‥with a teary passion that was deemed unbecoming in a Jesus and Mary Chain fan.

So the OED included some words people use.  Nothing to see here.

Update: But you can see a member of the new-words group on the dictionary staff explaining a bit of the thinking behind "heart" and "OMG" here.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/03/lexicography