sweetheart

   A term of endearment, the equivalent of ‘darling’, since the end of the thirteenth century. The expression was at first two separate words, but their constant use together caused their fusion. Shakespeare uses ‘sweetheart’ vocatively in six of his plays. In King Lear it is the name of a dog. The term is used between lovers, between parents and children (usually to daughters), between good women friends (e.g. The Merry Wives of Windsor).

   In Cass Timberlane, by Sinclair Lewis, we are told that ‘he had always, since the age of three, called his mother “Sweetheart”, so that it had become her pet name among the choice little set of the fastidious matrons of Grand Republic.’ Lewis would have been justified in saying that it had become her nickname rather than pet name, but one sees what he means. ‘Sweetheart’ is occasionally used between men. The Wild-Goose Chase, by Beaumont and Fletcher, has Belleur saying: ‘I beseech you, good sweet Mirabel, sweet-heart’.

   A modern instance of use between men, where the threatening tone makes it clearly a sarcasm, occurs in Fletch, by Gregory McDonald. A newspaper librarian says to a reporter: ‘Anytime I can do you a favor ‘You can. Fuck off.’ ‘Return this file before you go home. sweetheart, or I’ll report you.’ Normal use of ‘sweetheart’ as an endearment occurs in such novels as Brothers in Law, by Henry Cecil; The Country Girls, by Edna O’Brien; Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming; The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene; Room at the Top, by John Braine; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, by Alan Sillitoe; A Travelling Woman, by John Wain; Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry; Withm and Without, by John Harvey.