RADIO LEICESTER THOUGHT FOR
THE DAY
© John Denney 14 August 1998
It
was a bit of a barnburner, yesterday. All those saddoes
– you know, the mouse potatoes, the hippy dippies, everyone
who’s off message – well, 2000 of them got into the new
Oxford English dictionary. If you didn’t know, a barn
burner is an exciting event, a saddo is someone with a pitiable
life, a mouse potato is someone who spends too long sitting at
his computer, a hippy dippy is someone whose lifestyle is
well-meaning but chaotic, and being off message means you’re
not toeing the party line. And the dictionary, which, after
all, is just a list of words available for use, simply records
the glorious way the English language changes over time.
It’s
one of the reasons that English is spoken as a first or second
language by more people than any other is, and why that number is
increasing all the time. Mind you, there’s English and
then there’s English! In Pidgin, the dialect of
English spoken in Papua New Guinea, they have a wonderful word:
see if you can guess what it means. “Himbigfellayouhitiminiteefhesing”.
No? It’s a piano. And if you hit him in the
teeth, he sure sings! And there are dangerous differences
between English English and American English. Americans
wear their vest over their shirt, and we wear them under. Their
pants and knickers are respectable outer garments, and ours
aren’t.
Words
are important. They describe things and define them and
help us communicate with each other. The Bible sometimes
calls Jesus “The Word”. That’s
because He is the description of God, the definition of God, and
the way in which God communicates with us. And, so we can
understand it, the language of the Bible has to be updated afresh
for each new generation in this fast-changing world. Most
of us struggle with the nearly 400-year old King James
translation of the Bible. But new words and new grammar
don’t change the meaning. Here’s something from
the opening of John’s gospel in a very new translation:
The
Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word.
The Word was God …The Word became flesh and blood, and moved
into the neighbourhood.
And
surely the arrival of the Almighty to live amongst us is the
biggest barnburner of all time! The trouble is, … so
many of us have gone off message!