You know what an amateur is. Someone who’s not a professional, or who isn’t very good at something. These days ‘amateur’ has a bit of a negative association, and we even use it as an insult for something or someone that’s a bit crap – ‘the writing was rather amateurish’ or ‘what a bunch of amateurs’, for example. But, it actually has a sweet little backstory.
‘Amateur’ originates from the French word, ‘amateur’ (bet you couldn’t have guessed that), which itself comes from a Latin word, ‘amator’. ‘Amator’ means ‘lover’ or ‘one who loves’. That comes from the verb ‘amare’, which means ‘to love’, and is where we get words like ‘amorous’, ‘enamoured’ and ‘amiable’ from.
So why does ‘amateur’ relate to love? Because historically, an amateur was someone who took part in something just for the love of it, not for any money or kudos. Of course, we do still use ‘amateur’ in this way, but it’s been rather overtaken by the more negative meaning. Shame.
There are lots of famous amateurs throughout history who’ve done amazing things without any formal or professional training. Here are just a few of them.
Hedy Lamarr – she got all the good genes, didn’t she?
Hedy Lamarr
Known for her acting skillz in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s (she was promoted as the ‘world’s most beautiful woman’ by Louis B Mayer), Lamarr co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication. Before you say ‘so what’, know that without this technology we wouldn’t have many modern wireless communications including wi-fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Which means I, for one, would be constantly lost. This was despite Hedy having no training in engineering.
Roger Bannister
Roger Bannister was a medical student and an amateur middle-distance runner. On 6 May 1954, he became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, something most people thought was impossible at the time. He did all of that while studying to become a doctor and without a professional training regimen. Bannister went on to become a neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.
Philo Farnsworth
At the age of 21, while labouring on the family farm, the excellently named Philo Farnsworth developed the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (AKA a video camera tube) and the first fully functional and complete all-electronic TV system. His innovations laid the groundwork for modern TV (thank god – otherwise what would we all point our living-room furniture at?). And, you’ve guessed it, he didn’t have any training in this field (only in actual fields, hahaha). Oh, and if you didn’t know that but his name sounds a bit familiar, it might be because the ‘Futurama’ character Professor Farnsworth was named after him.
Well, now I feel like quite the underachiever.
