Why do have such reverence for the heart? Yes, it’s functioning is necessary for survival, but that’s true for our other organs too. At the end of the day, it’s a big fleshy pump that sends blood around the body (I think that’s how it’s described in Gray’s Anatomy).

It’s important, but the number of idioms we have that refer to it seem quite out of proportion, compared to how often we refer to other parts of the body. The following is just a small fraction of the heart-related idioms listed at thefreedictionary.com:

• :(one’s) heart’s desire
• a bleeding heart
• a change of heart
• a heart of gold
• a heart of stone
• a heart-to-heart
• A heavy purse makes a light heart
• a man after own heart
• Absence makes the heart grow fonder
• aching heart
• after one’s own heart
• after own heart
• at heart
• bare heart
• be all heart
• be for the faint-hearted
• be still my beating heart
• be still my heart
• beef-hearts
• bleeding heart
• bless heart
• bottom of (one’s) heart
• break heart
• break someone’s heart
• broken-hearted
• by heart
• change of heart
• chicken-hearted
• close to heart
• cockles of (one’s) heart
• cockles of heart
• cold hands, warm heart
• cross heart
• Cross my heart
• cross my heart and hope to die
• crux of the matter
• cry heart out
• cry one’s eyes out
• die of a broken heart
• do heart good
• do one good
• eat heart out
• eat one’s heart out
• eat one’s heart out
• eat your heart out!
• emptier than a banker’s heart
• enshrine in heart
• enshrine memory in heart Go
• Faint heart never won fair lady
• faint of heart
• find it in heart
• find it in one’s heart
• follow heart
• from the bottom of heart
• from the bottom of my heart
• from the bottom of one’s heart
• from the heart
• get to the heart of
• get to the heart of (something)
• give (someone) heart failure
• give someone heart failure

While there are many ways to refer to the heart, there are a few more common ones: as the core of ourselves, like our soul; as a symbol of romantic love; and as a symbol of emotion in general. We’ve thought about the heart in this way for thousands of years, long before we discovered its function during the Renaissance. The Ancient Egyptians thought that the heart was the source of the soul and memory, which is why they threw the brain away during mummification. Aristotle similarly believed that the heart was the seat of intelligence, motion, and sensation. But why?

I think it’s because the heart makes us aware of it more than other organs do. We feel it beat, hear it. Even though our lungs are similarly in evidence when they function, they blend much more into the background. And their rate doesn’t change, unless we physically exert ourselves. And even then, the heart does too.

And it’s that change that I believe is most important. Our heartbeat changes a lot depending on the context. When we’re at rest it slows down, but when we get excited, it speeds up instantly. When we’re watching a horror movie and we know the monster’s coming, our pulse starts to race. And what about when we see that person we have a crush on coming our way? It’s natural that we would associate the heart with our emotions so much, especially romantic love.

What must it have felt like, before we had any idea what the heart was, to have felt that pounding in one’s chest while fleeing a sabre-toothed tiger, or doing whatever cavepeople got up to to keep warm on those dark winter nights? What a strange, mystifying thing it must have been to them: like another being right in the middle of their body, beating against them, and seeming to send waves of excitement around their bodies.

Now that I’ve thought about it, it’s no wonder that our hearts hold such a special place in… well, in our hearts.

You have to feel sorry for the meninges and the sabucbaus glands though: they’ll never get their moment in the sun. I just know it, in my heart of hearts.