kata Drew

This post is going to be similar to a previous post which I published concerning the phrase “so therefore.” There’s further discussion of “so therefore” over on the WordReference.com forums where I started a thread about it.

Today I would like to talk about talking about blogging. There seems to be some confusion. I hear people, most commonly professors at my school, refer to individual blog posts as a blog. This is not only incorrect but misleading. Consider the following:

“Yesterday I read a new blog by Al Mohler.”

Upon hearing this phrase I immediately begin to wonder whether Al Mohler has started blogging at a new location other than albertmohler.com because “blog” and “a blog” usually refer, in a collective sense, to an entire set of blog posts. For example, you are reading my blog at KataDrew.com. Specifically, you are reading a (blog) post entitled “How to Talk About Blogs” on my blog KataDrew. You are not reading a new blog on my blog. That is imprecise, for I only have one blog and it is at KataDrew.com. My blog is, however, made up of many posts.

Posts are the specific, individual units which make up a blog. If I may belabor the point futher: blogs do not make up blogs but posts make up blogs. Note in the images herein displayed the usage of the word “post” in one blogging platform’s administration section (Wordpress).

One possible exception is an aggregated group blog such as that at Said at Southeastern (sebts.blogspot.com) which aggregates posts from several different blogs to make up it’s own blog in a sense, though it has it’s own posts. Still, you’ll want to refer to a post you read on Said at Southeastern not a blog you read on Said at Southeastern.

So to rephrase the initial above-quoted example to be correct and precise you’ll want to say something to this effect:

“Yesterday I read a new post on Al Mohler’s blog.”

Or

“Yesterday I read a new post by Al Mohler.”

May this help you avoid not only a personal pet peeve of mine, but imprecise language attendant with using “blog” to refer to both a blog and a post on a blog.

phil-omni-glot (from Greek phil “love” + Latin omni “all” + Greek glot “tongue, language”) : noun. A lover of all languages. (A personal coinage of yours truly.)

Why love all languages?

The point has been made that the reason people from every tribe, language, people and nation are seen worshiping around Jesus’ throne in Revelation 5 is because people from every tribe, language, people and nation will find him all-satisfying. In other words, what is special about the one true God is that people from every ethnicity and tongue find in him what they need and they worship. God is therefore not a tribal deity whose “splendor” is seen by a select, remote view, but he is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and his Son is the One through whom all that has its existence was created (John 1:3).

Analogy: If I design a pair of shoes and only people in West Virginia like them, I won’t be a failure, but I won’t be a complete success either. However, as in the case of Nike, if I can design shoes that are desired and praised by people all over the world, that points to a superior shoe. A diverse body recognizes its value.

By his blood Jesus ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev. 5:9). This is their “new song” (Rev. 5:9a), praising this act. The answer then as to why to love all languages is because God loves all languages and ransomed people from every language by the blood of his Son. Moreover, the telos of each of those languages is to find praise and adoration for the Lamb who was slain and is worthy on the lips of the ransomed speakers.

The Christian has another reason to love languages: because the Scriptures were written in other languages (i.e., not English). Consequently, since I know you’ve heard of sermon jams, you’ll want to give the John Chapter 1 Jam herein linked a listen (featuring John 1:1-3 from the Greek New Testament and the Latin Vulgate courtesy of GreekLatinAudio.com [sorry, maybe one with Hebrew will be forthcoming]).

Long live philology!

Two words in the English language have foregrounded the prominence of Damascus:

1. Damsons - a Eurasian plum
2. Damask - a flowery decorative

That’s all.

Yesterday in Bath I saw and heard a toddler drop the f-bomb.

Someone asked why I say “gandhi” instead of “oh my god” or simply “god.” Let me count the ways:

1. First, I’m not overly interested in taking the Lord’s name in vain or blaspheming. Generally, I try to avoid it.
2. “Gosh” or “golly jee” or “jeepers creepers” are just euphemisms, saying ‘well’ what you’d really like to say.
3. I have a (seminary!) professor who says “oh my god” and “god” flippantly. Can’t stand it; appalled, to say the least.
4. Gandhi is multisyllabic. You can stretch it out in true moments of angst. Gannnn-dhi!
5. Gandhi is no one’s deity; just a surname. It’s therefore less likely that someone will be offended by taking Gandhi’s name in vain.
6. Overall annoyance at hearing “oh my god” used so flippantly. “Oh my Gandhi” is a cause for pause. It scores minor uniqueness points.
7. Finally, humans (homo loquens) need a word or phrase which can be used to express frustration or angst. All languages have such words. My idiolect employs “Gandhi.”

Well, it’s kind of embarrassing but I used to think (until rather recently) that…

…the phrase “nip it in the bud” was “nip it in the butt”

…tupperware was actually tubberware

Just two examples of things you gots to figure out on your own.

It’s been some time since I started this fledging category of Reasons to Read and hopefully in writing this post I can give the curious reader one more reason. The first reason to read was to confirm what you’ve been thinking. The second reason to read is not unlike it: one should read because some things just stick in the memory and haunt you for hours and sometimes days (and sometimes longer, if you’re lucky).

Reading feeds the mind and produces cud that can be regurgitated at moments of boredom or leisure.

Cud: the portion of food that a ruminant returns from the first stomach to the mouth to chew a second time (Dictionary.com). Some things you read just need that second chew. Believe me, you’ll know what those things are when you read them; if you don’t, you need to quickly develop an eye for what those things are because they will come back to haunt you when you go to chew them that second time but find that they’ve lost their flavor (i.e., you can’t remember exactly how that quote went or where you read that blog post about such and such). I have a whole folder of bookmarks of articles, blog posts and pages I’ve read that I thought might come back to haunt me later.

One such writing is George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language which I have recently discovered by way of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Here’s a full version of the essay (it’s fairly short and an overall fun read).

What particularly in the essay has led to ruminant tendencies in my thought life? Six little rules to cut “out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally”:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

As I read and write more and more, I become ever convinced that metaphors and similes are key. Orwell takes it one step further though and warns the writer against using hackneyed phrases in rule #1 above. “Once upon a time…” needs to become “in a galaxy far far away.” What do you think about the image of cud I used in the paragraphs above? To my knowledge I’ve not seen this metaphor employed in print before though it seems obvious enough and I don’t doubt it’s in print even now; nonetheless it serves well. I want to strive to imagine concepts in vibrant metaphor never before seen in print in order that I might not surrender to the expressions of others. Orwell’s point in giving the six rule speaks to this (emphasis mine of course):

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person.

Hopefully something from Orwell (or from me) will stick in your mind and prove that because some things just stick is one more reason to read.

Happy regurgitating!