Happy New Year. It's 2020. The year at the heart of so many "2020 vision" plans.
On the last day of last year, I hastily scribbled down my new year's resolutions. This time, I tried to keep it down to a few I might reasonably actually do. But what of the ones I'm really not so committed to?
Blogging a little more (to keep in the habit of writing) is something I'd kind of like to do, but not if it turns out to drain too much time from the things I do need to do. Especially as many of my blog posts are "thinking aloud" - thoughts I'm not especially committed to but seemed worth exploring (or at least getting out of my head) by writing down.
What do we call those little things we don't expect to stick to like glue but would like to try?
So, after thinking about antonyms for "resolute" I decided "tentative" seemed the most appropriate. And it so happens that "tentations" has a meaning too.
Apparently, in 1877, the Astronomer Royal George Airy had a method for adjusting ship's compasses that involved experimentally placing boxes of iron chain and magnets, and adjusting them until they cancelled out the magnetic influence of the ship's hull. (via the Practical Dictionary of Mechanics 1877, via the OED).
So, in honour of the tentative nature of the commitment (and George Airy's experimental method), one of my New Year's Tentations is to blog a little more.
Even if what I'm putting out there isn't much more sophisticated than hulking iron chains (and with much less direction than a ship's compass!)
