Of all the various words bandied about yesterday for submission (and thanks, David, AD, and Lorna for your refreshing suggestions), right now I'm favouring, of all things, circulation. Assertion is forceful -- it has a raised finger -- but doesn't one get tired of raising one's finger all the time, especially if one is repeatedly turned down or ignored? (Same for presentation, invitation, permission, emission, etc.) Circulation is emotionally neutral, yet healthy for the breath and blood. It suggests traffic, pedestrians, flowing water. The idea is to keep those poems circulating. So I've replaced the word Submissions with Circulations on my computer files having to do with such things. (And if I don't like what I'm circulating, it can always go into the circular file.)
Now, as for that other downer-word, "rejections". As I said, it could use a facelift... even if the face falls down after a while. (It's the while that counts here...who knows how long my own while will last?)
Let's see. Without going to absurd lengths of euphemistic dishonesty (or, on the other hand, feeding fulminations of anger) -- Delays. Deferments. Oversights. Bidings for time. Passes. Passovers. Elisions. Skips. Deflections. Suggestions?
2 comments:
How about waitings, wanderings, revisits, realignments, returns, rebirths, reincarnations, recirculations (to use your circulation idea), still roamings, still lookings (as in still looking for a home), or that editor doesn’t have clue...
Your mental thesaurus has been active, David. Thanks for a bunch of possibilities that didn't occur to me. Actually, of all the words you came up with (and I came up with) I like "returns" best -- it's neutral, even positive, as when I look forward to my tax return, or a return on an investment. Recirculation I would use when I send the poem out again. But how about recurrence? Redolences of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence...
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