为什么情人节爱心不是心脏的形状？_时事

为什么情人节爱心不是心脏的形状？

One suggested origin for the symbol is that it comes from the ancient African city-state of Cyrene, whose merchants traded in the rare, and now extinct, plant silphium. The plant was used to season food, but doubled as a contraceptive. A silphium seedpod looks like a valentine's heart, so the shape became associated with sex, and then with love.

一种假想指出，心形象征源于古代非洲城邦昔兰尼，那里的商人贩卖一种罕见的现今已经绝种的串叶松香草。这种植物过去用来给食物调味，也可用于避孕。串叶松香草的心皮看起来就像情人心，于是这种形状就和性爱乃至爱情关联在一起。

Another possibility is that the shape is a crude representation of a pubic mound, the vulva, a pair of breasts, buttocks, or a pair of testicles. It may even have come from a poor attempt at drawing an actual heart. A lousy artist, an inaccurate description of the subject, or a malformed model all could have led to that shape.

另一种说法是，心形是阴阜、阴户、一对乳房、屁股或一对睾丸的粗俗象征。这种形状甚至可能只是因为想画心脏却画得不像。技艺拙劣的艺术家、对心脏外观的不准确描述或畸形的心脏模型都有可能导致这种图案的产生。

The Catholic church explains the symbol as coming from a vision that Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque had, where the "Sacred Heart of Jesus"—associated with love and devotion by Catholics—appeared in this shape surrounded by thorns. But Alacoque didn't have this vision until the late 1600s, well after the symbol was already documented. This makes it the unlikeliest of origin stories, but the church's frequent use of the shape was probably a driving factor in popularizing it as a symbol of love.