A WORD, PLEASE — honeymoon

continuity: Next, Professor Aubrey Vellum, with the most romantic word in English, and its rather surprising first job.

the verdict: You know the photos: two people on a beach, sunburned and grinning, the wedding barely a week behind them. Everyone back home sighs and says, how lovely, they're on their honeymoon.

a word, please: Honeymoon. A word, please.

the crack: Now, people love to say this word comes from an ancient custom, where newlyweds were given a whole month of honey wine, called mead, to sweeten the marriage. It's a lovely story, and it isn't true. The real one is better, and a little cheekier. Picture Tudor England in fifteen forty-six. A writer named John Heywood is gathering up the proverbs people actually said, the sayings of the street and the kitchen. And there among them is honeymoon, built from two plain old English words we'd had for centuries: honey, for sweetness, and moon. But it wasn't a holiday at all. It was a wink at the newlyweds. Your love is as sweet as honey right now, and like the moon, it's full tonight. From tomorrow, it starts to wane.

the collision: So honeymoon began as a bit of gentle teasing: enjoy it, darlings, because it won't stay this bright. Over the centuries, though, the word softened. It came to mean that sweet first stretch of married life, and later the trip a new couple takes to begin it. And now look at us. We've built whole resorts around it, with honeymoon packages, honeymoon suites, and a hashtag full of sunsets. We took a sly little warning about the waning moon and turned it into the most hopeful holiday on the calendar. I suspect the old proverb-makers would laugh, and then book a room.

the glimmer: Here's what I love. People heard that sweetness fades and decided to celebrate it anyway, because a sweetness you know won't last forever is the kind you remember to savor.

the exit: That's the word. And if your moon is full tonight, enjoy every drop of the honey.