Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage by John McWhorter My rating: 5 of 5 stars Absolutely loved this. McWhorter is a brilliant lecturer (and at 1.75 speed, he sounds superhumanly brilliant). As I began, however, I wasn't sure how much more McWhorter had to...
Linguistics
Delightful Video by Entertaining and Effective Lexicographer
I no longer need to be persuaded that descriptivism, not prescriptivism, is the way to go in linguistics—although I hasten to say that I will and do most certainly prescribe language choices for the only people for whom it is appropriate for me to do so: my kids. But...
Fiddlesticks and Lexicography
What do you do if you’re not sure what a word means? Wait for it... You look it up in The Dictionary. So far we’re together, right? This is chicken-crossed-the-road-to-get-to-the-other-side level stuff. But what if The Dictionary disagrees with The Dictionary? I...
Discrimination
I saw this sidebar at The Atlantic not too long ago. Notice the first item: The article itself doesn't use the word "discriminate," and I have no idea who wrote the headline. But I do think it's interesting that the article itself discriminates against many groups...
Our Embarrassment of Translational Riches
We have an embarrassment of riches in our English Bible translations. Today I was texting a particular man whom my church's outreach ministries have had a lot of contact with over the last few years. The last time I spoke with him he was in a very bad situation, and...
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice About Contemporary English, Don’t Say Anything At All
When it comes to our common tongue, says Ammon Shea, “there are two things that have remained constant. The English language continues to change and a large number of people wish that it would not” (Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, x). You know those...
Evangelical Atheism
Two posts for the price of one: 1. This is an absolutely fantastic, must-read article by non-evangelical atheist John Gray. It’s probably just as well that the current generation of atheists seems to know so little of the longer history of atheist movements. When they...
The Reading Level of the KJV
I love the King James Version; it deserves its honored place in English church history. Its words will never leave my heart. But to be honest, I have trouble reading it in places—even though I grew up with it. And this is a concern to me, because I want to understand...
BUY THIS BOOK NOW!
This is an unbelievably valuable book—on sale for two bucks on Kindle. Get it now. Read it. It would help a good deal if you've had some Greek and/or Hebrew under your belt (he doesn't transliterate Greek words), but I believe you could profit from the book even...
The Odd Bible Translation Situation We’re In
The Book of Mormon (1830) and the Pickthal translation of the Qur'an (1930), both completed long after "thee" and "thou" faded from common English usage, both adopted the archaic syntactical and grammatical forms used in the KJV. Why? Here's the Book of Mormon: Holy,...
What Makes a Word “Real”?
This video is fantastic. I love the moment when she asks, "Who regularly refers to a dictionary either in print or online?" Almost every hand in the audience goes up. Then she asks, "Who has ever looked to find out the editor of a dictionary?" A lot...
Grandiloquence and the KJV
I have long felt that this was the case, and it's nice to have it confirmed by someone with an ear for Hebrew as well developed as that of Robert Alter (scroll down to find his presentation), who's been reading the language since boyhood: Poetry in the King James...