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Originally Posted by Thinlómien
I do not mean that I would assume that anyone calling someone a treasure would claim ownership over her/him, but I think there is a certain possesive edge to the word and if you call someone a treasure, it looks like you're kind of taking a higher status compared to him/her, which I can't see Celeborn doing with Galadriel. I do not seek to "incriminate" the word or emphasise these subtle minor tones in it, I just don't think it would have occurred to Celeborn to use that word of Galadriel, or that if he meant to imply something like what you say he implied, some other word would have occured to him first, because of the quality* of his and Galadriel's relationship.
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Well, I can't say definitely, because personally I don't think that I have ever called anyone "treasure" and it is probably not a word that would occur to me to use, but simply evaluating it I don't see anything bad about it. Yes, it is about how both the one who uses it and also the recipient interpretate it (and had not C&G known each other for thousands of years, it may have been possible that if this were used about Galadriel, and she would interpretate it in the worse way, as soon as the Company left she could have turned to Celeborn: "How dare you-!"), but I think it is not necessary that Celeborn could not have used it. Maybe he would simply belong to the cathegory of people who don't see anything wrong on the word. If we were not to speak about Celeborn but about let's say Thranduil, then I daresay a metaphore of treasure would be indeed quite a compliment
(Although now maybe I'd start to worry whether in his case it wouldn't be too simple, and maybe in referring to people specifically he would move into a higher cathegory from the "material" one.)
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But I didn't mean it that way and it really isn't in contradiction with what I talked about being possesive earlier - I think "have" is a far more equal term than "treasure", because you usually think people can "have" each other, while the one who possesses a treasure owns it, but the the treasure doesn't own the person. (Okay, in a way, it might - but that is philosophy and unrelated to the original topic!  )
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Hm, I would actually say "have" is worse than "treasure", but that's also a matter of opinion (I only had in mind the fact that in most cases, "have" is used in the meaning "own"). And not sure if it isn't a little cultural/language determined. But in any case, the main point was: if you thought the use of the term "treasure" in the sentence quoted, if it were to be about Galadriel, would be inappropriate, then I say: the usage of "have" you posed could be interpretated in a similar way.