I can't understand

the American habit of naming their deciding events as if the date is a special sports date or something.

A Guide to Super Tuesday Possibilities

Only 10 States are voting on 'Super Tuesday'? What makes it 'super'? It's been seen over and over in recent years about their political events, but why? Why this need to label a deciding event (almost) of a political nature in the manner a football event is named? Will they soon start calling the Presidential Election the 'Washington Bowl' or something? It's really too weird...

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The West Indies Bible Society

is doing a very good work, I think, anyway...

Jamaica's patois Bible: The word of God in creole

"The Bible is, for the first time, being translated into Jamaican patois. It's a move welcomed by those Jamaicans want their mother tongue enshrined as the national language - but opposed by others, who think learning and speaking English should be the priority."

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Language, ministry,

and the 'pastoral task of writing'.

Joining the Communion of Saints and Writing the Unwritable Word

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Remaining faithful

to a morphing and changing language is difficult...

When a Dictionary Could Outrage

...and would normally anger quite a number of people...

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This is really true

Do you speak Christian?

I have been with people who, if I didn't know what is generally meant by most of the language, others might well find incomprehensible.

But then I've been in business groups and people who have sounded the same way, just different buzz words and phrases.

(Fortunately, every time I enter a blog post, due to timing, Blogger tells me I'm 'saved' with a little button that says 'SAVED'. It says that right now, in fact... JOKE!)

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'The Believer' discusses

Doubling in the Middle

Fascinating stuff, really...

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One of my favourite

mix-ups...

Spoonerisms: Sixing up mounds

For those interested, the story referenced in this article:

The Mion and the Louse (from somewhere or other on the intertubes...)

A way back, before Crossington delled the Washaware, there was a late big grion, deeping peacefully in his slen, beaming of a dreefsteak.

When suddenly he was awakened by a mittle louse, running crack and borth afross his crace!

Toosing his lemper, he nabbed the mittle louse by the nuff of his screck, and was on the kerge of villing him! Moor little pouse!

"Oh lease, Mister Pion," mied the scrouse, "If you will only get me low, I fromise paithfully to rekind you for your payness." And lo the scion, who must have been a scoy bout in his dounger yays, decided to dee his daily good dood and fret the louse mee.

Well, a few leeks water, that very lame scion got all nangled up in a tet. Although he was bing of the keasts, not to be confused with Cros Bingby, no one came to answer his rellowing boars.

But, shear dildren, pay's the hereoff. Along came the mittle louse, and gnawing the topes with his reeth, freed the shion from his lackles. "Turn afair is bout play!" meeked the scrouse, as he hurned on his teels and heat it for bome.

Now the storal of this morey is, "Sometimes our bubbles are trig. And sometimes our schmubbles are trall. But if we trad no hubbles, how could we blecognize our ressings?"

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'Shalom' is a perfectly good word

The Hebrew hotline: Keeping an ancient language modern

"Modern Hebrew, which can now be heard everywhere on the streets of Israel, has continued to evolve since it was reintroduced as a living language."

In some ways a losing battle, much like Quebec's, I expect. Think 'le hot dog'...

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Like, juvenile language...

What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness

"The decline and fall of American English, and stuff"

I have been called a language prig. I now wear the title proudly.

(It's a great article, by the way, with much truthful observation.)

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How serendipitous!

On this date in 1754 Horace Walpole coined the word

Serendipity

How's that for history?

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Today

commemorates the death, in 2008, of Marie Smith Jones and, consequently, the death of

the Eyak language.

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A thoughtful post

that I don't really agree with.


The F Word and Christians

The F-Word can be very expressive, but so are a lot of other words and what it can really express is a lack of vocabulary and a lack of thought for other people. To say that it's just another word, and to use it in regular conversation, seems to be something the younger generation is doing, as though freeing it from it's vulgar classification and trying to make it mainstream. There's a lot of words that shouldn't be mainstream, even though they're just words. It's not what they are, it's what they project. I'm not sure that 'liberating' this word is good. Where will it then end? Are words just constructions of letters and without meaning of their own?

Anyway, what's wrong with the word fork? Just wondering...

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What you don't know

about common words...

Here’s the odd, sad truth about mistletoe. Plus, is the kissing custom a mystery?


(I knew about Balder, though...)

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The word of the year

Merriam-Webster announces it:

Audacity of 'austerity,' 2010 Word of the Year


But, in the normally bizarre world of American politics and right-wing political celebrities,

Sarah Palin coins ‘word of the year,’ books boffo cable debut

Mind you, one doesn't usually award things to the brainless use of a non-word.

Another poll results in:

"Whatever" voted most irritating word in poll

So. You're not being clever, you're simply being annoying.

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I guess

it's not really moronspeak, but it's close (even if I just did it now myself)...

What Does Palinspeak Mean?

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You wanted to know the

Little-Known Second Verses of 10 Children’s Songs

I know you wanted to know that. I did. And I found them interesting. More interesting was that I didn't know them, when I stopped to think about it...

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For those interested

in philology, liguistics and the history of written language...

How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs

Or anyone interested in the Ancient Near East, Egypt and the Nile area, alphabets, hieroglypics, cuneiform, and so on, and so on, and so on, from the pages of Biblical Archaeology Review, an always interesting, and sometimes controversial, publication...

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Interesting article...

When fiction breaks down

"John Lanchester, the acclaimed author who has written a gripping account of the financial crisis, argues that it is too outrageous to work in a novel, and asks why the world of work features in so few modern stories "

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Discoveries every day...

Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests

I love archaeology, ancient semitic studies, languages, etc.. There's something new all the time. Now if I wasn't a bear of very little brains...

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Gah!

- and other expressions of surprise, dismay and horror...

Unfriend - word of the year

I remember using my computer back in the pre-internet days, and then, finally, during and after the establishment of BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems for those to young to know what they were). I also remember wondering, even at that time, what this sort of connectivity was going to do to the world, and how things would change as a result. Remember, this is pre-internet. And now it's far, far too late to stuff the genie back into the bottle...

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