A Dilettante Has Nothing to Do With Pickles!
Well, nothing, that is, unless your “dilettante” is a pickle-lover.
“Dillettante.” A common misspelling, this, and sometimes humourous. But for those who have the affliction of needing to be right, there are certain words in the language that give us nightmares. “Chaffeur” …”amateur” … “connoisseur.” But the Big Kahuna of them all is “dilettante.”
Everyone knows that the herb is dill, spelled D.I.L.L. Good stuff in dip, or for making pickles. Swallowtail butterfly larvae like to eat it.
As “dilettante” starts off with the same sound, all of us English-speakers want to spell “dilettante” with two Ls. Alas, it isn’t so.
“Dilettante” is a word of Italian derivation; it means “one who dabbles” or “a connoisseur.” The Italian root is “dilettare,” meaning “to delight,” and the ultimate root is the Latin “delectare” (that’s pronounced /DEL ek TAH ray/), which also means “to delight.”
A dilettante is a person who loves something, particularly the arts, and who pursues them without serious professional intent. It can also imply amateurishness or lack of skill.
So, today’s lesson is…Don’t let your spelling make you look like a dilettante. Leave the double-L to the herbs.