No Surrender...Maybe
One of the things I tend to notice, are words that we accept and use blithely, and never question, that end up imprisoning us in some way. Many's the poetry magazine, or newspaper, that has missed out on having access to my "pearls of wisdom
and sensitivity", because of the usage of one six letter word. It is the word "submit", as in the sentence, "To have a chance
of being published submit three pieces of your work". Call me a nit picker, but I've always felt ill at ease with this call to
"surrender", so that I can get people to lend me their pages. Instead, two words, with the same number of letters, "send us", would have given me permission to get in touch. Today, I decided to check the internet dictionary, to see what they had to say about this word, in the event I'd been over reacting. What I found was a dark treasure trove of synonyms, among them:
"acquiese, appease, be submissive, bend, bow, buckle, capitulate, cave, cede, concede, cry uncle, defer, eat crow, eat dirt, fold, give away, give ground, give in, give way, knuckle, knuckle under, kowtow, obey". With this discovery I felt instant validation, for my not being in the habit of generating "submissions". I've learnt never to say never though. Who knows?...
maybe someday, if my written utterances keep blowing back in my face, I might finally decide, its time for me to "cry uncle",
"eat dirt", or "knuckle", and finally accept, a universal but questionable usage of a word. Quester.
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