Whence lurve?

You are correct…
From the movie Annie Hall: A heightened term to suggest more-than-love
“Love is too weak a word for what I feel—I lurve you, you know, I loave you, I loff you, two F’s, yes I have to invent, of course I—I do, don’t you think I do?”

Great movie! I love Christopher Walken in it!

Shouldst not thou have said “whence cometh lurve?”

“Whence” needeth a verb in order for it to make sense.

“Whence Comest Lurve.”

Didn’t Shakespeare write that? I forget who starred in the movie adaptation. Santa Claus, perhaps?

Yes, @DominicX, I believe you are quite correct – and said beautifully as well!

“Whence,” although not common, is still in use in standard English, along with “hence,” “thence,” “hither,” “whither,” etc., whereas “comest” and “cometh” are archaic.

@Jeruba

I use “whence”, “whither”, “thither”, etc. whenever I want. People think I’m a freak… :(

But I want to bring them back!

So do I, @DominicX, But I rarely conjugate verbs with -st and -th. So I was suggesting that they do not necessarily belong in the same era, “whence” is not archaic and does not mandate an archaic verb because it is still in use in modern times. By separating them you do help bring them back.

I would also argue that idiomatically you don’t really need a verb, not as long as you can also say things like “Whither the Republican Party?” But of course you do if the aim is a complete sentence.

@Jeruba

Yeah, I was just joking. That post was really supposed to be for fun, not meant to be taken seriously. I thought that was obvious.

And I assumed the aim was a complete question.

Ok, @DominicX, my mistake. Which part was the joke, then? You don’t really use them? People don’t really think it’s strange? You don’t really want to bring them back?

@Jeruba

No, those are all true. I don’t use them that often, but I do use them sometimes. The joke was my first post on this question, the one with the Elizabethan/Jacobean language.

Ok. And I was saying, joke or not, you wouldn’t have to use a verb form as old as “cometh” to agree with “whence” because “whence” is not an archaism. Being fond of those words myself, I didn’t like to see them implicitly relegated to period pieces.

No, but it is on its way to becoming archaic. I never hear people saying them. And like I said, it was a joke. I was using old archaic terms with something that is also old and not used much anymore. I wasn’t saying that is the only time they can be used. I know that.