After blogging last night, I looked at my list of Haibun and Tanka Prose that are “ready” for submission. I may have been over-optimistic in that assessment. I read the first one of nine and was immediately overwhelmed by a feeling of trepidation. Of the nine I thought were ready it turns out that several of them aren’t as good as I thought they were when I “finished” them. A couple more aren’t actually finished (I normally write the prose using a working title and then think “I’ll write the haiku later”). So that means I still have poems to write. And then, even more annoying, two of them are almost the same. Four out of nine are ready. the other five are going to need work, and that work is going to have to be done in the next two weeks. It’s not quite the leisurely month I was planning.
Still, as we all know, I only work under pressure. Julia says I only work under protest, which is also pretty accurate. I meant to be a dilettante with private means but life didn’t get the message.
Apples
I just looked it up to make sure I was using it correctly, and found a search listed as “What does dilettante mean in old terms?” Old terms? From that question it’s almost as if the enquirer thinks it’s one of those new words that crop up every year, like . . .
(Googles “List of New Words”)
. . .abrogate. I wasn’t expecting that on a list of new words for 2023. Or gaffe, inchoate or omphaloskepsis (a lack of motivation to move, exert oneself or change – guess why I decided to add this one.). This is not what I was expecting. These are, I feel, only a list of new words if you are John Milton.
Apple Press
It seems that the modern, pejorative sense of dilettante only came into use in the late 18th Century. Modern? late 18th Century? Who is deciding on these definitions?
Fortunately I then found a proper list. Cakeage – a fee charged at an eating establishment for bringing in your own cake. Obviously comes from corkage. I presume it mainly applies to birthday cakes at celebrations. Cakeism – a belief that you can have your cake and eat it. Pinkwashing – making it look like you are an ally of the LGBTQ+ community to gain credibility – joining whitewashing, greenwashing and sportswashing. It’s also a term that has been used since 2002 to describe companies who use the breast cancer pink ribbon to disguise their activities.
It is, as I’ve said before, interesting where the internet takes you.
Apple Juice. Notice the clue in the picture.
Pictures are from September 2015. Guess what we were doing.
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The hint is in the picture? The picture of the apples on the tree caught my eye. The one in front looks more like a pear to me.
Quite a selection of interesting words, Simon. I remember a saying from my youth. “Don’t use those big words. You might sound ostentatious”. 🙂
🙂 Nice one. I will remember that.
That apple looks a lot like a pear, but if you tilt your head it just looks like a disappointing apple. 🙂
The story of my life.
As a time served dilettante, I object to being thought of as a novelty.
If you are using the late 18th Century as a starting point, most of us, apart from Jacob Rees Mogg, are mere novelties.
It’s expected that you’d look over work you hadn’t seen for a couple of days and be unsatisfied. You wouldn’t be a poet if you didn’t revise ad nauseum. Keep at it.
That first Google list was bizarre. The second was lovely. “Cakeage” for the win.
I have revised three tonight and think they are ready to go. I’ve been writing one of them for over a year – it’s had two haiku and three titles, part from all the edits and rewrites. It might not be ready, but it’s time for it to leave home. 🙂
Cakeage just conjures up such a lovely picture of friends and tearooms. 🙂
Please don’t keep feeding me new words I’ll never remember
Sorry Derrick, it’s the sesquipedalian side of my nature coming out . . . 🙂
Brilliant response – of course I had to look it up
It’s a word I learned a few years ago. I waited for the right time and, seven years later, the moment arrived . . .