Is there a word/ phrase to describe somebody who has devoted their life to practising something but is still not very good at it?

Question

I need a word/phrase/idiom (either adjective or noun) to describe somebody who has devoted their life to practising something but is still not very good at it.

Example:

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he is __________ (adjective) or he is a _________ (noun)

Please note that the person has shown great interest and committment over a lifetime but possibly lacked the special skill or talent required to really excel at their chosen field.

Note 2: failure, misfit, disappointment, ordinary, poor and mediocre are not a good fit for the word I am seeking, but the case of mediocre professional musicians was the sad reality that prompted my question.

Answer 1

I'd suggest Manqué, a somewhat uncommon term borrowed from French. Wikipedia describes it thus:

Manqué (feminine, manquée) is a term used in reference to a person who has failed to live up to a specific expectation or ambition. It is usually used in combination with a profession: for example, a career civil servant with political prowess who nonetheless never attained political office might be described as a "politician manqué". It can also be used relative to a specific role model; a second-rate method actor might be referred to as a "Marlon Brando manqué".

Answer 2

Frustrated.

(of a person) unable to follow or be successful in a particular career. "a frustrated actor" - dictionary.com

My father always called himself a "frustrated musician". He was a physicist and loved music, but in his opinion, his love for it exceeded his talent. Though, to be fair, he was the first person who could get a sound out of my didgeridoo the first time he held it to his lips.

Answer 3

This is likely to require a lookup, but it's an easy one and the meaning (and connotation!) are unambiguous: a Florence Foster Jenkins.

Wikipedia has a good overview; she was someone who wanted to be an opera singer since she was a child, rich enough that nobody was willing to tell her that she wasn't any good, and determined enough that at age 76 she rented Carnegie Hall for her only public performance. She's been described as "the world's worst opera singer".

Answer 4

A life time practising and he's just a flop.

Oxford Definition :

Informal (of a performer or show) be completely unsuccessful; fail totally. ‘the show flopped in London’

Answer 5

May I suggest the following,

would-be

the term by itself will not imply that the person has struggled to achieve their heart's desire but it will suggest they are trying and they have as yet to reach that pinnacle.

Look at Uncle, the would-be pianist, he's practised music all his life and he's still not very good.

Merriam-Webster defines it as

disparaging
:desiring, intending, professing, or having the potential to be
• a would-be actor

Oxford Dictionaries say:

Desiring or aspiring to be a specified type of person
• ‘So, once again, I would caution would-be writers against excessive length.’

If I wanted to emphasize the person's unsuccessful bid, I might add

a failed would-be

There aren't as many hits on either Google or Google Books, but that is to be expected, it is not a complimentary term, and it is slightly unwieldy.

Answer 6

It might be best not to overthink it. A talent is a person's natural aptitude or ability for something, so someone who lacks this ability is talentless.

Answer 7

How about this?

"He is still an amateur, and all his hard work and practice have come to naught."

Or

“He is an amateur, and despite all his practice, his skills are still bush league.”

Answer 8

You might consider this noun phrase, or something like it:

Perpetual novice

This phrase is sometimes used in the field of software development (and possibly elsewhere) to refer to someone who has acquired plenty of experience without acquiring the high level of skill that is expected to come with the experience. An example of this usage is in the title of the blog post "perpetual novice – years of experience vs skill".

Novice (or a word with similar meaning such as beginner, neophyte, or apprentice) implies someone who is trying to learn something in which they are not yet expert. Like most of its synonyms, novice also implies that someone is new to this field of endeavor, so the word perpetual makes the phrase an oxymoron. The perpetual novice may put in many years of earnest effort but will never become an expert.

Answer 9

Perhaps perennial also-ran would work for you. Per Oxford Dictionaries, an also-ran can be

1.1. informal An undistinguished or unsuccessful person or thing.

The term often collocates with perennial, meaning

1. Lasting or existing for a long or apparently infinite time; enduring or continually recurring.
   . . .
   1.2. attributive (of a person) apparently permanently engaged in a specified role or way of life.

As a whole, the phrase suggests someone who keeps training and showing up for the competition, but who never wins (or even places or shows).

So in your example:

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he is a perennial also-ran.

If that expression sounds too harsh, a similar expression with more suggestion of success (just not total mastery) is perennial journeyman. A journeyman is

A worker or sports player who is reliable but not outstanding.

Traditionally, of course, a journeyman was a Craftsman who had served out an apprenticeship and was still honing hours or her skill on the way towards becoming a matter of the craft. So the term already implies years of hard work on a skill; modifying it with perennial (or perhaps something like perpetual) will give the clear implication that "matter" status is permanently out of reach.

This this phrase would work well if Uncle is a good enough musician to play at parties, but not brilliant enough for the concert hall or a record deal. Or if he's still pretty bad, but you want to be as kind as possible. Note, however, that this is a much rarer phrase than perennial also-ran, which is common enough that I would almost call it a fixed phrase.

Answer 10

Enthusiastic amateur: amateur, as defined by The Free Dictionary is:

lacking professional skill or expertise. "a very amateurish job"; "inexpert but conscientious efforts"; "an unskilled painting

However, the amateur is enthusiastic, committed to practicing long hours, taking many lessons, learning difficult compositions and displaying her talents in recitals. Her art is her life. Think of Florence Foster Jenkins as played by Meryl Streep. the Enthusiastic Amateur believes in herself, even if no one else does.

Answer 11

Many answers here are pretty good, also many of them are uncorteous in the least of cases and plain insulting, if not offensive in the worst.

Having read on the original question that the phrase would be used to offer advise or criticism to a relative, and all things being equal, you may wish to be or stay on good terms with them, a milder but no less precise word is required, and I suggest :

---

un·ac·com·plished

ˌənəˈkämpliSHt/ adjective.

1. showing little skill.
2. Not carried out.

Merriam Webster further adds: " lacking talent, poise, grace, or achievement"

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Which seems befitting, since having practiced for a lifetime and being a person who probably wasn't negligent in his professional development and education, this word conveys the lack of something that would make him recognizable or memorable above the ordinary and everyday, but implying that whatever is missing is not his own fault or has yet to come, in order to be accomplished.

Using your example:

Look at Uncle. Practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he is an unaccomplished musician still.

Let's never forget that language is a tool for connecting with people, and people have feelings, specially about their livelihood and career choices. Advise will be more readily accepted and even appreciated if it is delivered with kind words.

Imagine someone offering you advice in the form:

Hello [someone's_name_here] Look at you, all your life practicing [occupation] and you are, to be honest, still not very good at it! You are an [unkind_suggestion], and I think you should [your_best_advise].

Try substituting [unkind_suggestion] with some of the accurate, witty and patently correct answers in this thread.

Most likely, your party will stop listening before "... and I think you should....." failing the whole purpose of communicating with someone else, even if your advise was good, pertinent, clear, pragmatic, useful, realistic and profitable.

You would have just wasted your time, lost karma and brownie points with those who disagree with you and probably this person's friendship. Not a good deal in the least.,

Answer 12

To me, this seems like a hack

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hack

hack

noun 1. a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts: As a painter, he was little more than a hack.

Answer 13

Many Adjectives Might Do

You may want to make a qualifying statement in your context to best convey this (the italicized portion). Then the word inept would work:

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life, yet inept at the finer points.

Or more drastic:

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life, yet inept at the basics.

The qualification is needed because the definition is very direct:

Having or showing no skill; clumsy.

So you need to qualify that he has been unable to obtain the "finer" aspects of the skill (or even worse, the "basics") that would be evident in a proficiency or mastery of it.

However, there still exists words that can convey the idea of not having mastery without the qualification. Some dictionaries note the word unproficient (Oxford) exists, along with inexpert (also recognized by Webster, unlike the former term as of this posting) which are adjectives that indicate not gaining a level of proficiency or expertise, while still grasping the basics (as one who studied lifelong would possess).

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still unproficient.

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still inexpert.

In a similar way, a variety of words can covey the inexpertise by referencing the commonality: average, commonplace, middle-of-the-road. The last one even states:

(of music) tuneful but somewhat bland and unadventurous

So

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still middle-of-the-road.

And then some adjectives that really have connotations of inferiority: second-rate, run-of-the-mill, tolerable.

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still only tolerable.

The Noun is the More Challenging

To convey the "life" concept, then maybe lifer, which has as part of the definition (Oxford):

North American A person who spends their life in a particular career, especially in one of the armed forces.

Or Webster's more generic:

a person who has made a lifelong commitment (as to a way of life)

So you could reduce the sentence to:

Look at Uncle, musically he is just a second-rate lifer.

Answer 14

After all that time he's a nonperformer.

A person who or thing which does not perform well or as required; a person who does not live up to expectation.

Nonperformer

One of the definitions of the noun indicates a longterm aspect, the failure to adhere to a contract, so not momentary.

Nonperformance

Answer 15

He is still a nonstarter

A person or plan that has no chance of succeeding or being effective.

Nonstarter

Answer 16

If you're willing to rewrite your sentence just a little bit more, you could write

... he gets an A for effort.

From the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs (via The Free Dictionary) we have the definition

A for effort

Fig. acknowledgement for having tried to do something, even if it was not successful.

In my experience, this usually implies the result was not successful; this meaning is reflected in the definition in The Urban Dictionary.

The phrase above (with the letter "A") works well when used with an audience in the United States, since in many schools in the U.S. "high marks" is an A. If you're writing for people in countries that do not use the letter-grade system (A, B, C, etc.) to measure students' performance in school, you might write

... he gets high marks for effort.

People sometimes give an "E for effort," which means high marks to some people (who went to schools where "E" was awarded for excellent performance) but not to others.

Answer 17

In John le Carre's novel 'A Perfect Spy' the term 'nevver-wozza' is frequently used (the spelling may be a bit off, sorry, but a more correct spelling would be 'never-was-a'). IMO this is a lovely bit of slang.

It's a play on 'has-been', which is someone who was good at something in the past but is now unable to move on from those glory days. On the other hand a 'nevver'wozza' was never very good at anything no matter how much they tried or how fundamental the task was to their existence (in the novel it is often used to describe race horses).

Answer 18

Never was.

Similar but a non-distorted version of the answer by @MattH. Someone who hasn't achieved anything in the course of their career as suggested in the quote by C. Northcote Parkinson ~

It is better to be a 'has-been' than a 'never-was'

Answer 19

Within the context of orchestral music (and other organisations) we have "rank-and-file", which is someone who is ok - they can play the parts, but they lack the passion or talent to excel. It's the alternative to "virtuoso", in the musical world.

There's an Italian (I think) word for a rank and file musician, which I can't put my finger on at the moment, which might work well....

Answer 20

dilettante

is a pretty good word for this, except that it implies a lack of serious commitment.

However, I would venture that someone who has devoted their lives to a practice would at least be able to perform at a serviceable level, even without much aptitude. If that's not the case it's likely the person wasn't really as committed as they made themselves out to be in terms of practice .

Answer 21

While "amateur" has 2 relevant meanings :
(1) Someone who pursues a study or sport as a pastime [[ might be , he is very good at it , but it is not his profession ]] ,
(2) Someone who is unqualified or not skillful enough [[ the connotation or meaning required by @EnglishStudent ]] ,
there is another word which has only the second negative meaning : "amateurish".

My suggestion : "Despite all his practice, he is still amateurish."

[[ I wanted to mention that this was originally my comment to an answer by @headblender , but since I got a response from OP , I decided to add it as answer ]]

[[ Also wanted to mention that @laurence-payne had also commented about the trickiness of using "amateur" ]]

Answer 22

Although the dictionary definitions don't really express your meaning directly, I would still be inclined to call him a piker:

2 :one who does things in a small way
_{from m-w.com}

This is a negative word, with the implication in your case that they never took risks (even while practicing), or really engaged in serious self-analysis, to really improve; they just went along doing more or less what they had always done to get by.

An example usage:

The other morning I told my husband that when it came to snoring, compared to him I was a piker.
_{from WorldWideWords}

Answer 23

After pursuing something over my lifetime, to be unrewarded by even modest levels of accomplishment is to suffer an unrequited devotion.

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he is unrequited.

unrequited
adjective
(of a feeling, especially love) not returned or rewarded.

Answer 24

He is a man with a bright future behind him

Answer 25

I'm not sure if the goal is to shame him in his failure or to politely describe his lack of positive results for his efforts.

This might do; Look at Uncle Kyle, he's practiced music all his life and remains a beginner.

Answer 26

If one desires to be more on the positive of things, it might be a good idea to employ the following expression:

Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and is still not very good at it, yet he is a such a tenacious trier.

Tenacious gives the meaning of strong-willed, resolute and persistent.

A for the word trier, it gives us the following sense of positivity:

If you say that someone is a trier, you approve of them because they try very hard at things that they do, although they are not often successful.

He may not always achieve greatness but at least he's a trier.

Answer 27

Simpleton or Underachiever or castaway or lost one or clueless or try-hard or feeble-minded.

Personally I would go with clueless cause it makes more sense when addressing a particular case