If the key to a word's meaning is its etymology, then pacifier and peacemaker should mean exactly the same thing. Paci- means "peace." "Fier" means "maker." Both are from Latin (pax and facere,* respectively). But as I always say, it's very important never to confuse...
Linguistics
Puritans, Fundamentalists, and Evangelicals: A Question of Definition
Here's a great quote from Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible: "A puritan is such a one," the London lawyer John Manningham wrote in 1602, "as loves God with all his soul, but hates his neighbour with all his heart." Anyone who took a...
Why Bother to Learn Very Well English? OR, Where Are All the Quechua Majors?
Argument Learning a language after childhood is very difficult, so difficult that language learners require powerful motivation. Why then do people learn German? Chinese? French? What pushes them on? Cultural enrichment is one possible motivation. Intellectual...
Capitalizing Pronouns Referring to Deity
Note: I have written a somewhat lengthier and more definitive post on this topic for the Logos Bible Software blog. I write Bible textbooks for a living, and the various publishing houses for which I write (a grand total of two) have style manuals. Conservative...
A Sop for Prescriptivists, OR, Language Change Isn’t All Bad
Wit, today, is Frasier Crane. (Or so I recall from my sad days as a surreptitious sitcom watcher in the 1990s. I don’t know who wit is now.) Wit is the capacity of someone to dazzle others with incisive, off-the-cuff, humorous comments or banter. Wit wasn’t always...
“Fervency Is Not a Word, Rand”
Do you ever feel a pang of regret when a certain memory flits across your mind? I won't begin to share all my examples—I typically take them to the Lord alone. But here's one. And don't laugh. Once upon a time, I was a counselor at the Wilds Christian Camp and...
A Blogger After My Own Heart
This guy, a doctoral candidate in linguistics, has a whole blog dedicated to the same mission my posts about Lexicographical Prescriptivism are. He writes on his about page, Grammar is a contentious point. Some argue that it’s horrifyingly appalling that ANYONE would...
A Good Way to Explain It
Bible Typography Manifesto
I’ve released a manifesto, and I invite you to sign it. “Manifesto” sounds a whole lot nicer than “private opinion,” and that’s my only excuse for using such a grandiose word. The format is slightly tongue in cheek, but the upshot is serious. I’m a Bible curriculum...
The Singular They
Reasonable, clear, straightforward, and admirably brief (and it even quotes the KJV):
Another Verse in the KJV That Can Be Easily Misunderstood
A few years ago I turned on the TV (don’t ask why; I had no excuse) and flipped over to the Church Channel. There I beheld a white, 40-something charismatic preacher jumping around the stage before a wildly clapping and shouting audience. He read the following verse...
Reports of the Death of English Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Poor English has been dying since at least the 17th century.