Wednesday, July 12, 2017

A Word on Wednesday: Passioneer

The noun passion is a strong emotion or feeling most often associated with lust and desire.
The suffix -eer originally occurred in loanwords from the French (buccaneer and pioneer) and productive in the formation of English nouns denoting persons who produce, handle, or are otherwise significantly associated with the referent of the base word (auctioneer; engineer.)

Passioneer is a word I concocted to describe people with an overzealous passion for seemingly innocuous objects.

Consider these hyperbole: 

- I am PASSIONATE about strawberries.
- I am PASSIONATE about breastfeeding.
- I am PASSIONATE about tennis.
- I am PASSIONATE about decorating.

Variations in career planning: 

- Helping people is my PASSION!
- Training horses are my PASSION!
- Food trucks are my PASSION! 
-Fitness is my PASSION!


I try to override my cynical side, but its familiar biting wit is hard to suppress. The word passioneer is my response to the overuse/misuse of the word passion. It's a joke I make with myself. 

The 1995 movie "French Kiss" was one of five VHS tapes I owned. My favorite line was stated by bad boy character "Luc" played by Kevin Kline, "People who say they are happy make my ass twitch." 

I find passioneers not quite ass-twitch worthy, but rather deserving of a smug eye roll. It makes more sense, for me, to find purpose over passion and to be tenacious rather than passionate.