Since it’s Valentine’s Day, let’s dwell for a moment on the profoundly bizarre activity of kissing. Is there a more expressive gesture in the human repertoire?
When parents kiss their children it means one thing, but when they kiss each other it means something entirely different. People will greet a total stranger with a kiss on the cheek, and then use an identical gesture to express their most intimate feelings to a lover. The mob kingpin gives the kiss of death, Catholics give the “kiss of peace,” Jews kiss the Torah, nervous flyers kiss the ground, and the enraged sometimes demand that a kiss be applied to their hindquarters. Judas kissed Jesus, Madonna kissed Britney, a gambler kisses the dice for luck. Someone once even kissed a car for 54 hours straight.
From the beginning of an op-ed article about the kiss in The New York Times
Key quote: “The German language has words for 30 different kinds of kisses, including nachküssen, which is defined as a kiss ‘making up for kisses that have been omitted.'”