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Amateur
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amateur

amateur (àm´e-tûr´, -ter, -e-ch¢r´, -cher, -ty¢r´) noun
1.Abbr. a., A. A person who engages in an art, a science, a study, or an athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2.Abbr. a., A. Sports. An athlete who has never participated in competition for money.
3.One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.

adjective
1.Abbr. a., A. Of, relating to, or performed by an amateur.
2.Abbr. a., A. Made up of amateurs.
3.Not professional; unskillful.

[French, from Latin amâtor, lover, from amâre, to love.]
- am´ateurism noun

Synonyms: amateur, dabbler, dilettante, tyro. The central meaning shared by these nouns is "one engaging in a pursuit but lacking professional skill": a musician who is a gifted amateur, not a professional; a dabbler in the graphic arts; a sculptor but a mere dilettante; a tyro in the art of writing poetry.
Antonyms: professional.
 

Word History: When Mrs. T.W. Atkinson remarked in her 1863 Recollections of the Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants, "I am no amateur of these melons," she used amateur in a sense unfamiliar to us. That sense, "a lover, an admirer," is, however, clearly descended from the senses of the word's ultimate Latin source, amâtor, "lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective," and from its immediate Latin-derived French source, amateur, with a similar range of meanings. First recorded in English in 1784 with the sense in which Mrs. Atkinson used it, amateur is found in 1786 with a meaning more familiar to us, "a person who engages in an art, for example, as a pastime rather than as a profession," a sense that had already developed in French. Given the limitations of doing something as an amateur, it is not surprising that the word is soon after recorded in the disparaging sense we still use to refer to someone who lacks professional skill or ease in performance.

Autodidact

"My education was of the most ordinary description, consisting of little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day school.  My hours out of school were passed at home and in the streets." Michael Faraday, who had litttle mathematics and no formal schooling beyond the primary grades, is celebrated as an experimenter who discovered the induction of electricity.  He was one of the great founders of modern physics.  It is generally acknowledged that Faraday's ignorance of mathematics contributed to his inspiration, that it compelled him to develop a simple, nonmathematical concept when he looked for an explanation of his electrical and magnetic phenomena.  Faraday had two qualitieis that more than made up for his lack of education: fantastic intuition and independence and originality of mind.

The internet is for amateurs. No - that's not an insult, but high praise.  'Amateurs,' by definition, do what they do for the love of it. Because it's fun, social, enriching, transformational, evolutionary, or even just beautiful. Now that the investment community sees the net is seen as more of a lame duck than a cash cow, the only ones left out here (or the only ones that should be) are us amateurs.

- Douglas Rushkoff

Amateur (1994)

Directed by Hal Hartley

Writing credits
Hal Hartley

Genre: Comedy / Crime / Drama / Thriller

Tagline: Accountancy, Murder, Amnesia, Torture, Ecstasy, Understanding, Redemption

Cast overview, first billed only:
Isabelle Huppert  ....  Isabelle
Martin Donovan  .... Thomas
Elina Löwensohn  .... Sofia
Damian Young ....  Edward
Chuck Montgomery .... Jan
Dave Simonds  .... Kurt
Pamela Stewart ....  Officer Melville
Erica Gimpel  .... Irate Woman
Jan Leslie Harding  .... Waitress
Terry Alexander  .... Frank, the Cook
Holt McCallany ....  Usher
Hugh Palmer  ....  Warren
Michael Imperioli  ....   Doorman at Club
Angel Caban  ....  Detective
Emmanuel Xuereb ....  Bartender

Runtime: USA:105
Country: UK / USA / France
Language: English
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Dolby
Certification: USA:R / UK:15 / Finland:K-16 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15

• Anomalog:
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• adult alternative track _Amateur_ MP3 (192k) by Aimee Mann off of _I'm With Stupid_ (1995)
• IDM post rock release _The Amateur View_ 12" by To Rococo Rot on City Slang (1999)
  • a1 - _I Am In The World With You_ (vK)
• acid lounge jazz track _Behind The Eightball_ MP3 (192k) by Xploding Plastix off of _ Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents_ on Beatscience (2001)
• minimal techno track _Amateur Surrealism_ MP3 (192k) by Stewart Walker off of _Stoic ep_ 12" on Matrix #006 (1998)
• emo track _Amateur Standing_ MP3 (192k) by Penfold off of _Amateurs & Professionals_ CD on Milligram #003
• sample: "if you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away...; if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth..." - Danny Aiello as the chiropractor in the film _Jacob's Ladder_ (vhs/ntsc)

"Well, these people have clearly never read Thomas Kuhn's _The Structure of Scientific Revolution_. The only people who ever advance science forward are the people who come from the edge, from the outside, usually amateurs, usually not institutional. The way scientific advance happens is though completely irrational bursts of brilliance. Then they create a scenario of careful research and cross-checked data and slow accumulation. It doesn't happen like that. People are free to dismiss me, I don't even necessarily say they're wrong. The ideas need to be judged on their own merit. If they're saying they can't be true because I take drugs, that's like saying 'It can't be true because he's a Jew' or 'It can't be true because he's a homosexual.' These are not sufficient reasons to dismiss anybody's ideas."

- Terence McKenna interview in _The Resonance Project_ Magazine issue #3 (1993)

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