A lovely word and a lovely habit to build up. Culling is, to me, distinguished from sorting by the act of decision. You aren’t just scooting around stuff, you are actually determining your plan for it. Cull implies not only a separation, but an elimination.
In practicing Discardia, the holiday I invented as a reminder to let things go, that act of decision is vital. Instead of sorting the mail over the dining table and leaving the little piles, you cull over the recycling bin and drop the junk mail into that outbound receptacle.
The ambiguity between a positive or negative use makes sense. I might be culling all the magazines older than 2 months to recycle them or I might be culling all my old, no-longer-worn t-shirts to find the ones laden with memories so that I can photograph them and tell their stories on my blog before I send them off to a new life at Goodwill.
cheers,
Dinah
p.s. And now I’m resisting the urge to make a t-shirt that just says “ten grand pianos”.
Laughing very hard here at the new status of this page after I got my “your comment is awaiting moderation” message.
It says:
No comments yet to Cull
:D
Pam Bergheimer:
December 16th, 2019 at 4:02 pm
This is a wonderful reference! I love words, their uses,
Roots, and definitions. I’ll be a frequent visitor!
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Dinah:
April 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
A lovely word and a lovely habit to build up. Culling is, to me, distinguished from sorting by the act of decision. You aren’t just scooting around stuff, you are actually determining your plan for it. Cull implies not only a separation, but an elimination.
In practicing Discardia, the holiday I invented as a reminder to let things go, that act of decision is vital. Instead of sorting the mail over the dining table and leaving the little piles, you cull over the recycling bin and drop the junk mail into that outbound receptacle.
The ambiguity between a positive or negative use makes sense. I might be culling all the magazines older than 2 months to recycle them or I might be culling all my old, no-longer-worn t-shirts to find the ones laden with memories so that I can photograph them and tell their stories on my blog before I send them off to a new life at Goodwill.
cheers,
Dinah
p.s. And now I’m resisting the urge to make a t-shirt that just says “ten grand pianos”.
Dinah:
April 15th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Laughing very hard here at the new status of this page after I got my “your comment is awaiting moderation” message.
It says:
No comments yet to Cull
:D
Pam Bergheimer:
December 16th, 2019 at 4:02 pm
This is a wonderful reference! I love words, their uses,
Roots, and definitions. I’ll be a frequent visitor!