The other day we got an email from a listener, Eric, producer Ella Fetter. Would you like to read it?

I would like to read it. Okay. Hi, I absolutely love the science fiction podcast. Definitely excited when a new episode comes up in my pocketcast's app. We can also be heard on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. Thank you, Johanna. I was wondering if you could explore the origin

of the word honeymoon. It seems like another one of those words where everyone knows what it means,

but has no clue where it came from. Keep up the great work, Eric Vanandi. Honeymoon. It seems like

word that would have a lovely origin story, doesn't it? Honey, moon? What could

be lovelier? I'm imagining it started with a kind of wedding celebration, where you dance under the

moonlight and spoon-feed each other honey from those bare-shaped jars, which would make the dancing

tricky, but not impossible,

for those in true love's thrall. And then, I imagine, the honey dancing became an extended two-week

honeymoon rave, and then a vacation to Cancun. And finally, a pejorative, a metaphor, the honeymoon

phase. A good time that just doesn't last.

Maybe you pictured something like that, too?

Here's what we actually found out. It wasn't until about the late 1700s that the word honeymoon meant a trip that you take after your wedding.

As for literal honey,

a lot of people claim there was an old tradition for newlyweds to drink mead, which is made from honey. I really wish that were true, but alas, we were not able to confirm it. The real

origin is a little more bittersweet. So according to the Oxford

English dictionary, the word honeymoon from the start described a kind of love that wanes, as the

moon does. Another early interpretation that's perhaps even more glum was love that lasts no longer than a month. So the moon in honeymoon

is a direct reference to lunar cycles, as in a month. And honey, presumably, is the sweetness of

that time. The first time honeymoon showed up in print was in 1546 in a John Haywood poem.

As a wealth for wantonness in and out whips, so play at these twain, as merry as three chips.

Lexi Attia, Ph.D. student in medieval studies at the University of Toronto, reading a little excerpt for us.

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