Kevin Stilley

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Define your terms, please.

Allow me to share with you the story of an old fashioned lady, quite delicate and elegant, especially in her language.

She and her husband were planning a vacation so she wrote to a campground for reservations. She wanted to make sure it was fully equipped, but didn’t know how to ask about the toilet facilities. She didn’t want to write ‘toilet’ in her letter. After much deliberation she though of the old fashioned term ‘bathroom commode’ but when she read the letter she had written she was still uncomfortable with the straightforward language. So she rewrote the letter and abbreviated bathroom commode to B.C. “Does the campground have it’s own B.C.?” she wrote.

Well, the campground owner wasn’t old fashioned at all and when he got the letter he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. The B.C. business really stumped him. After worrying about it for awhile he showed the letter to some of the campers. Many of the campers were Baptists, and they were certain that the lady must be inquiring about the location of the local Baptist Church. So, the campground owner sat down and wrote the following reply.

Dear Madam,

I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure of informing you that the B.C. is located six miles north of the campground. It is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I will admit that it is quite a distance away, if your in the habit of going regularly. But no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches and make a day of it.
They usually arrive early and stay late. The last time my wife and I went was 6 years ago, and it was so crowded that we had to stand up the whole time. Right now there is a supper planned to raise money for more seats. It will be held in the basement of the B.C. I would like to say tht it pains me that I am not able to attend regularly, but it is not for the lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather.
If you decide to come down to the campgrounds, perhaps I could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to all the folks.
Remember that this is a friendly community.

If two parties are using the same terms in different ways what do you have? Confusion.

Medieval scholastics had a Latin phrase that was almost a motto for them. “When there is confusion, make a distinction.”

How many of you have read the dialogues of Plato? What is the first thing that Socrates always did in his effort to arrive at understanding?  – He forced those involved in the discussion to define their terms.  “What is justice?  Don’t give me examples of justice, define it.”

How many of you have been involved in dialogue with other faiths?  Do they use the same theological vocabulary as you? Yes. Does it mean the same thing? Probably not.

As a religious leader, guarding your flock, you must make sure that you have defined your faith for them and that your flock understands the language games that are played in the theological marketplace of ideas.

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ?  Really?  What does that mean?

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Alfred Lord Tennyson – select quotes

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying.
Blow, bugle blow; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
~ from The Princess, 1850

I hold it true, whate’er befall
I feel it, when I sorrow most
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
– from “In Memoriam: A.H.H.” xxvii, st.4

Men at most differ as heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell.
~ in “Merlin and Vivien” line 812

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

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Church Bloopers

You have probably seen the following list of Bloopers that actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services. I have seen them more than a few times myself. However, I get a kick out them every time I see them so I share them here and hope you get a few chuckles out of them.

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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

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The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’
The sermon tonight:’Searching for Jesus.’

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Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

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Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community.

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Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you.

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Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.

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Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

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For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

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A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.

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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.

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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

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Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.

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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.

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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

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The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday:
‘I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours.’

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RELATED CONTENT

Bible Misprints

Anguished English

Attracted to Homophones

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The turn of a sentence has decided the fate …

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) once said that, “The turn of a sentence has decided the fate of many a friendship and, for aught we know, the fate of many a kingdom.”

The worst such occurrence of which I am aware happened near the end of WWII. Richard Lederer tells it much more concisely than I could so I share his account below:

Victory in Europe came on May 8, 1945, and Japanese resistance on the island of Okinawa ended seven weeks later. On July 26, 1945, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin issued the Potsdam Declaration: Japan had to surrender unconditionally or accept the consequences.

The Japanese cabinet seemed to favor a settlement but had to overcome two major obstacles to compliance–the tenacity of the Japanese generals and the pride of the citizens of Japan. Needing time, the Imperial Cabinet issued a statement explaining that they were giveing the peace offer mokusatsu.

Mokusatsu can mean either “We are considering it” or “We are ignoring it.” Most Japanese understood that the reply to the surrender ultimatum contained the first meaning, but there was one notable exception. The man who prepared the English language translation of the statement for the Domei news agency used “ignore” in the broadcast monitored by the English-speaking press. To lose face by retracting the news release was unthinkable to the proud Japanese. They let the statement stand.

Believing that their proposal had been ignored or rejected and unaware that the Japanese were still considering the ultimatum, the Allies proceeded to open the atomic age. On July 28, 1945, American newspapers printed stories reporting that the Japanese had ignored the peace offer, and on August 6 President Harry Truman ordered an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A new era in human history was irretrievably begun.

The destructive power of the bomb was an emblem of the destructive potential of language misused and misunderstood. The dead and missing from the bombing of Hiroshima numbered 92,000. Another 42,000 victims were claimed three days later by the blast at Nagasaki. Concurrently, Russia declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria.

In the twenty days that followed the confusion about mokusatsu more than 150,000 men, women, and children were lost. One word misinterpreted.

[Richard Lederer, The Miracle of Language. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991. pages 82-83]

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The following are links to my previous posts on translation misunderstandings:

Lost in Translation

Translate This

Jerusalem Is No More

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Anguished English, by Richard Lederer

Richard Lederer, Anguished English (NY: Dell Publishing, 1987), 177 pages.

Those of you who are logolepts will be familiar with verbivore Richard Lederer. He has been contributing to the addiction of wordaholics for decades. His name is familiar to many after having written more that 30 books about language, served as host of the radio program A Way With Words for nearly a decade, written a syndicated column Looking At Language that appears in numerous magazines and newspapers, — and all while teaching English and Media at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. In recent years, he has become known to millions more as the father of Howard and Annie.

I love Lederer’s books, and recently went to his book Anguished English to pull out “The World According to Student Bloopers” which I plan to use as an introduction to one of my lectures for a class I am teaching this Spring. I should have known that once I had the book in hand I would not be able to resist reading the whole thing once again (for about the bjillionth time).

Anguished English is appropriately subtitled, “An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language.” When Jacques Barzun has nightmares they must certainly be about the contents of this book. However, for those of us who aren’t quite as possessed obsessed passionate, this book is rolling-on-the-floor funny.

In addition to student bloopers, Lederer shares malapropisms, mixed metaphors, unusual translations, quips, mispellings, signs, and headlines that will have you pleading for mercy. But no mercy will be forthcoming, for like me, you will not be able to put this book down until you have finished it. And, even then you will not be able to escape it because you will find yourself reading portions to your family, congregation, students, and strangers that you meet on the street.

I recommend this book to EVERYBODY. Tolle Lege!

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Below are some excerpts from the Student Bloopers portion of the book to whet your appetite.

— Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

— Having one wife is called monotony. When a man has more than one wife, he is a pigamist.

— Many an inmate in the house of correction (of composition) knows the one variously attributed to William Lyon Pehlps of Yale University, Tubby Rogers of M.I.T., and others, who allegedly found this sentence gleaming out of a student essay: “The girl tumbled down the stairs and lay prostitute at the bottom.” In the margin of the paper the professor commented: “My dear sir, you must learn to distinguish between a fallen woman and one who has merely slipped.”

— Heredity means that if your grandfather didn’t have any children, then your father probably wouldn’t have any, and neither would you, probably.

— Abstinence is a good thing if practiced in moderation.

— Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

— The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.

— To collect sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.

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Want more? You can read Lederer’s collection of non sequiturs culled from actual insurance forms at Wes Kenney’s blog.

Or, check out these spelling mistakes.

Or, here for some interesting translations.

And here are some unique quotations.

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Now, go buy the book. It is about the price of lunch but will give you a whole lot more enjoyment.

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