... though my opinion may be influenced by the tendency to value a scarce thing more highly than one would if it were readily available. (There's probably a technical term for that, probably in economics, but right now I CBA to scour Wikipedia to find it.)
Possibly, although I think that has the wrong emphasis. I want to say that the value I assign to something is artificially raised from its "true" level by that thing being scarce, whereas "familiarity breeds contempt" seems to be saying that the value one assigns to something is artificially lowered from its true level by that thing not being scarce. The positive correlation between scarcity and perceived value is the same in both cases, but the two statements are nonetheless not quite the same.
If I have to give up one for the rest of my life, I'll keep kissing and give up chocolate. One the other hand if ewx is offering me a choice of one right now, I'll take the chocolate. Though I reserve the right to reconsider if it's out of date Hersheys or something.
Aha, that looks close enough to me. (I was intending it more in a personal emotional sense rather than a mass-market sense, but then it was me who drew the analogy with economics in the first place so I have only myself to blame.)
AFAICT stealing a kiss might easily qualify as sexual assault (unless, I suppose, a court determined that the kiss was not of a sexual nature), so you could get nicked for that too, surely?
According to the chocolate industry, well, their advertising sometimes seems to say so, even if they've not lately produced 'research' saying this.
According to me, no, apart from that chocolate you have is usually better than sex you don't, provided it doesn't contain marzipan or other unpleasant ingredients, you avoid eating so much you make yourself feel sick, etc.
Well, it depends who you're stealing the chocolate from too! Shoplift it from Sainsburys and I'm sure the security people will get zero-tolerance on your ass if they catch you, but purloin it from your best mate's chocolate stash and claim afterwards that you hadn't realised it wasn't intended for general consumption, and I reckon in many cases you'd stand a good chance of not being prosecuted for theft.
It's still a wrong if you steal your friend's chocolate, even if they don't have you prosecuted. But if I follow the song and surprise naath with a kiss at the turn of a mile then I've not done anything wrong (supposing for the sake that the circumstances don't cause it to be driving without due care and attention).
It hardly qualifies as stealing in any sense but the poetic, though, in that situation. In terms of the Theft Act 1968 (under whose purview it does not of course fall but supposing for the sake of argument etc), it fails on the dishonesty criterion, specifically 2.-(1)(b): you reasonably believe that you would have naath's consent if she knew about it (in advance).
Also, not everybody is in a position to be able to "steal" a kiss by this definition without wronging somebody.
Does anyone ever talk about ‘stealing’ kisses in a non-poetic sense? (Certainly that's the sense I had in mind, I even started throwing in lyrics when it began to look like you might not have realized that.)
I think the last time I can immediately remember seeing the phrase used, it wasn't in quite that poetic a sense, in that it was describing something which, if not actual sexual assault, was at least borderline non-consensual: the kisser was not operating in full confidence of the kissee's retrospective consent, and the kissee was not entirely happy about the act but was merely not quite annoyed enough to make a fuss. That's certainly the sense in which I would normally have expected to see it used.
Also, you originally used the phrase in response to Owen's implicit assertion that chocolate was easier to acquire. In the light of it turning out that you in fact meant one could steal kisses provided one had someone to steal them from who would probably have been willing to give them for free in any case, this suddenly sounds less like an attempt to persuade him of an error in his reasoning and more like being vocally smug that your own reasoning starts from different premises!
It's impossible to choose. Too much chocolate will make me feel sick; too much kissing will leave me with a chapped mouth. In just the right amounts.... still thinking.
The study also found that as the chocolate started melting, all regions of the brain received a boost far more intense and longer lasting than the excitement seen with kissing
Just goes to show that proxy variables don't know nothing.
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Date: 2007-04-16 01:51 pm (UTC)(though my colleague over there <-- does!)
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Date: 2007-04-16 02:40 pm (UTC)My baby beside me at the wheel
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Date: 2007-04-16 03:17 pm (UTC)According to the chocolate industry, well, their advertising sometimes seems to say so, even if they've not lately produced 'research' saying this.
According to me, no, apart from that chocolate you have is usually better than sex you don't, provided it doesn't contain marzipan or other unpleasant ingredients, you avoid eating so much you make yourself feel sick, etc.
According to anyone else, no idea l-)
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Date: 2007-04-16 03:56 pm (UTC)Also, not everybody is in a position to be able to "steal" a kiss by this definition without wronging somebody.
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Date: 2007-04-16 04:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-16 04:26 pm (UTC)Also, you originally used the phrase in response to Owen's implicit assertion that chocolate was easier to acquire. In the light of it turning out that you in fact meant one could steal kisses provided one had someone to steal them from who would probably have been willing to give them for free in any case, this suddenly sounds less like an attempt to persuade him of an error in his reasoning and more like being vocally smug that your own reasoning starts from different premises!
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Date: 2007-04-16 08:01 pm (UTC)Just goes to show that proxy variables don't know nothing.
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Date: 2007-04-17 08:49 am (UTC)