{"id":108,"date":"2003-08-16T19:26:26","date_gmt":"2003-08-16T23:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2003\/08\/16\/defending-dilettantism\/"},"modified":"2003-08-16T19:26:26","modified_gmt":"2003-08-16T23:26:26","slug":"defending-dilettantism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2003\/08\/16\/defending-dilettantism\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending Dilettantism"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I have recently been called a “dilettante”, an appellation I accepted with mixed pleasure. But I’ve converted this feeling to full-on unadulterated pleasure by means of my patented method of twisting meanings. Here’s the precept of this method: only the vulgar concern themselves with the “meaning” of a word. A word does not have a “meaning” in itself — there’s just a social arrangement concerning what one should understand it to mean. As the social arrangement changes, the meaning changes.<\/p>\n

The application? “Dilettante” is in itself not a negative word. It’s the Italian present participle of dilettare<\/i>, to delight. So a dilettante is literally someone who is taking delight in something. This is a word we dilettantes can reclaim, as expressing one of the best things one can do. If you’re a dilettante, you’re not just working on something for money, or recognition — you’re working on it because you love<\/i> it. An obviously similar case could be made for amateur<\/i>.<\/p>\n

OK, we’ve justified our actions: now we get to have fun. Dilletare<\/i> comes from the Latin delectare<\/i>. This comes straight into English as “delect”, but nobody uses that one. But in old French we see delectare<\/i> becoming delitier<\/i> – let it hop over the Channel and presto! the English word “delite”, spelled “delight” by the vulgar. These words are kissing cousins with “delicious” as well.<\/p>\n

But back to the Italian – do we get anything else of interest from dilettare<\/i>? I am so glad you asked, because according to the Lexicon Balatronicum<\/a><\/i>, the Italian diletto<\/i> comes into English in another form, viz. “dildo”. This etymology may have been stolen from Bailey — I gots no copy so I can’t tell. In any case, Richard Burton, as learned and sloppy a scholar as anyone, borrowed it for his translation of the “Arabian Nights”, so it’s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

The Lexicon Balatronicum<\/i> also mentions that another Italian word for “dildo” was passatempo<\/i>. Unfortunately there’s no record of English “pastime” or its loser variant “pastance” ever taking on this meaning. Oh, the snickering I could have done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have recently been called a “dilettante”, an appellation I accepted with mixed pleasure. But I’ve converted this feeling to full-on unadulterated pleasure by means of my patented method of twisting meanings. Here’s the precept of this method: only the vulgar concern themselves with the “meaning” of a word. A word does not have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}