Number 26
A few years ago I bought an odd little book in a used-book store called The Barefoot Mailman, by Theodore Pratt. Based on a real character, it's the story of an early Florida mailman who walked up and down the Atlantic coast carrying mail. The oddity was the book itself, a small, cheaply printed, horizontal format paperback. It was one of the Armed Services Editions of World War II. Beginning in 1943, sixty years ago, the government printed 1,322 titles for men overseas, including contemporary novels, classics, and more. The University of Virginia has a collection, and one of the Web sites on this series.
I like to think about this little book passing from hand to hand and pocket to pocket among the men overseas, taking them away from the war for a while. Johnny, I hardly knew ye ~ but we've read some of the same books.
Adam Nicolson, grandson of Vita Sackville-West, has a new book out, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. In his review in the May 26-June 1 Washington Post National Weekly Edition, Jonathan Yardley quotes Nicolson on the King James Bible as compared to the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible:
"The two are different in many respects, but exactly the same in the one that counts most. They have replaced the majestic language of the King James with flat, banal language. . . . The flattening of language is a flattening of meaning. Language which is not taut with a sense of its own significance, which is apologetic in its desire to be acceptable to a modern consciousness, language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires. It has, in short, lost all authority. The language of the King James Bible is the language of . . . patriarchy, of an instructed order, of richness as a form of beauty, of authority as a form of good; the New English Bible is motivated by the opposite, an anxiety not to bore or intimidate. It is driven, in other words, by the desire to please and, in that way, is a form of language which has died."
A friend and reader sent this review to me in response to The Language Police. She's the last person I'd expect to commend "the language of patriarchy" but she sent this without comment.
Fred, on the other hand, commented that the King James Version is a less accurate translation than some others, as well as being often obscure. Accuracy, of course, should be the first consideration, but beauty surely should be next to that sort of godliness, however archaic. And obscurity may be, like beauty, in the mind of the beholder.
One of my students from last month's English Confusion class wrote about visiting the Whaling Wall in Israel. As I know too well, anyone can make a typo, but it seems like certain words should be indelibly imprinted on the brain; a person who reads the Bible a lot, as this student does, might not be familiar with the Wailing Wall, but ought to have a strong visual memory of wailing, with its concomitant weeping. Where would "whaling" come from? Not from the story of Jonah. I did a search; it's not in the Book. A handy search engine allows you to search for and compare passages from the Bible from more than one version, and even different translations.
By the way, another of my English Consternation students turned in an obviously plagiarized paper ~ with a bibliography. I don't think she understood the lesson about "paraphrasing" and I can guarantee she still knows nothing of the scholarly material on John Milton she used, which had nothing to do with the assignment anyway. Another student plagiarized also; it's so easy to check on the Internet, but the bibliography was a really thoughtful touch.
While writing the line "it's not in the Book" above, I remembered an old comedy record my late Aunt Nelle gave me years ago. I went online to see if I could trace it, and sure enough, you can read "It's in the Book". I foolishly got rid of the record (I think it was a 78 rpm), but it's comforting to know that it's possible to recover lost artifacts this way. In fact, one might say the Internet is becoming a sort of group memory bank, more accessible than physical libraries ~ though not, I hasten to add, a replacement for them.
The humor of this 1952 comedy record depended largely on the country-preacher delivery of Johnny Standley, but he also cleverly toyed with the logic of English:
"It says here, 'Little Bo Peep' ~ who was a little girl ~- 'has lost her sheep, and doesn't know where to find them.' Now that's reasonable, isn't it? It's . . . it's reasonable to assume if Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep, it's only natural that she wouldn't know where to find them. That, that basically is reasonable, but, uh, 'leave them alone'. Now that overwhelms me . . . completely overwhelms me. The man said she lost her sheep, turns right around and boldly states, 'She doesn't know where to find them'. And then has the stupid audacity to say, 'Leave them alone!' Now! Now, now think for a moment! Think! If the sheep were lost, and you couldn't find them, you'd have to leave them alone, wouldn't you? So, 'Leave them alone'. 'Leave them alone'. It's in the book! . . .
"'They will come home . . . a-waggin' their tails . . .' Pray tell me what else could they wag? 'They will come home a-waggin' their tails behind them . . . behind them!' Did we think they'd wag them in front? Of course, they might have come home in reverse. They could have done that, I really don't know. But, none the less, it's in the book."
Then Standley led the congregation in singing the rousing "Grandma's Lye Soap" ("It wouldn't suds, it couldn't foam").
Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police, appeared last week on The Daily Show, my favorite news program. Imagine, an educator who writes on language appearing on a comedy news show. Things are looking up.
Lately hearing news promos in this new and trying form:
"Oil production starting to pick up in Iraq."
"A gravel truck overturning, pinning the driver, and tying up traffic."
Giving up hope for "Oil production is starting to pick up in Iraq" and sort of getting used to "A gravel truck overturns, pins the driver, and ties up traffic." And now this impinging on my consciousness. The eternal present not being enough; now newscasters trying for repeating tape-loop verbs. Seeing that truck driver turning over and over and over. . .
The new menu at a local restaurant now offers soup in a cup or a bowel. Just a cup for me, thanks.
Remember Lewis Carroll's "portmanteau words"? A constant reader wrote me about a road trip with her daughter, who, to spare her mother's ears, after a couple of aborted epithets came up with "airhole" to describe an offending driver. I'm adding this to my vocabulary. It combines nicely the concepts of "airhead" and that which can be digitally signified by forming a circle with the tips of the thumb and index finger.
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.
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