(Wikimedia Commons photo by Todorov.petar.p)
Have you hugged…somebody today? (The expression began
as “Have you hugged your kid today?” Now it’s gone so far as to ask, as an Etsy
selection does, “Have you hugged your burrito unicorn?” Um, why?)
Thanks to a shot, or two, in the arm of a Covid-19
vaccine, many of us now feel safe using our arms to clasp, cradle and cuddle
one another. No longer will expressions like “bear hug,” “bro hug” and “group
hug” seem like quaint artifacts of a pre-pandemic world. Calendar note: January
21st is National Hugging Day; might as well start gearing up now.
Humans have been hugging since the 1560s—actually, far
longer than that, but that’s when the meaning of wrapping your arms around
someone became wrapped around the word hug. In Old Norse, people engaged
in hugga, or comforting. The word evolved from hugr, which meant
courage, and which is worth pondering. Old English weighed in with hogian, to
care for.
The French, who like to linger over lunches and other
pleasing things, stretched the pleasure of hug to the four-syllable embracier
in Old French. Yes, that would be our modern “embrace.” The “brace” reaches
back to the French, Latin and Greek words for arm, for the obvious reasons.
Spanish makes it clear: el brazo is an arm; el abrazo is a hug.
“Hug” has its own brand of onomatopoeia. If you can
sigh, you’re halfway to saying it.
And so we sigh—with relief, with unrestrained emotion,
with no longer having to long to hug. We’re living high on the hug, and loving
it.
