Submit For Review

We are people of words, right?

We are writers, creators, artists. And yet somehow, quite often we forget to actually consider the words we use everyday. We are painters who forget to look at the colour on our palate. Colours that have a powerful effect on how we feel.

[How we feel powerfully influences our health, which powerfully influences our experience of life, our capacity to love, our capacity for joy……]

Has anyone else paused yet to consider the definitions or connotations of this button we have clicked hundreds of times over the past few years?

It only just struck me today.

Submit (verb.)

Oxford English Dictionary

• To place oneself in a position of submission or compliance
• To place oneself under a certain control or authority; to become subject or surrender oneself to another
• to refer for arbitration or consideration

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

• To yield oneself to governance or authority

• To present or propose to another for review, consideration, or decision
• to yield oneself to the authority or will of another : SURRENDER
• to permit oneself to be subjected to something (had to submit to surgery)

Synonyms

Quit. Yield. Give in. Succumb. Concede. Relent. Surrender. Relent. Bow.

Collins English Dictionary

• If you submit to something, you unwillingly allow something to be done to you, or you do what someone wants, for example because you are not powerful enough to resist.

In desperation, Mrs. Jones submitted to an operation on her right knee to relieve the pain.

If I submitted to their demands, they would not press the allegations.

• If you submit a proposal, report, or request to someone, you formally send it to them so that they can consider it or decide about it.

Synonyms

surrender, yield, give in, agree, endure, tolerate, defer, stoop, cave in, resign yourself, commit, tender, refer, present, hand in

Historical Meanings

Now obselete… but still deep in our memory. We are not born as blank canvasses. There is wisdom and memory in every cell of your body.

• To subject or expose oneself to danger, risk, uncertainty, etc

Julius Cesar..send to the king of Scottis and Pictis and bad tham submit fully to him. [Aslon Manuscript (1923)]

• To place oneself under the control of a person in authority, a government, etc.

• To yield, surrender, acquiesce; to be submissive.

• To surrender oneself to judgement, correction, treatment, a state of affairs, a condition, etc.; to consent to undergo or abide by a condition, etc.

• To place (a person or thing) under a certain control or authority; to make (a person or thing) subject or subordinate (to someone or something); to cause to yield.

Etymology

Partly French, Partly Latin

Submettre, Submitterre

Latin ≈ to bring to a lower level, to drop, lower, to lay down, to place under or beneath, (of the voice) to lower, to abate, to moderate, to reduce, diminish, to make subject or subordinate, (of circumstances) to crush, to subject, expose (to), (reflexive) to bow down, surrender, to lower oneself, condescend,

Oxford English Dictionary

Is it any wonder people describe feelings of anxiety before clicking that button?!

Do we not have enough to overcome regarding the fear of judgement and criticism without adding in a word that has such powerfully negative connotations and invokes more fear ?!

We really don’t pause enough to consider our words. Even as we begin to slowly awaken and understand just how powerful they are and how much they affect us - we continue overlook the words we use commonly or use everyday.

Can we change this?

Can’t we neutrally say “Send For Review” instead of “Submit?”

Or better still - can we come up with a far more positive word or phrase ? Something that puts a smile on your face and confidence into your spirit.

Any suggestions?