Pedants' Paradise

[ahinton]

Some ambiguity here Caliban! (Humour alert)

If no apostrophe had been intended, you could say that the message is a dire warning about the possible break-up of the UK, a political statement that has no place here, so please ignore the suggestion.

If the apostrophe is missing and 'we're' had been intended, this leads me to my old history teacher who would request us to stroke out 'we're' in our British history books and replace it with 'they're' .........which arrives at a similar conclusion, so please ignore.

But apostrophes or none, appropriate or otherwise and "political statement" or none, irrespective of whether it might, if it exists, have, or be thought to have, a "place here", that "message" has already been lost, surely?

[Lat-Literal]

The symbol for number suggests some sort of American state.

As in Lennon's US "Walls and Bridges" era "#9 Dream".

Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé etc.

[french frank]

But apostrophes or none, appropriate or otherwise and "political statement" or none, irrespective of whether it might, if it exists, have, or be thought to have, a "place here", that "message" has already been lost, surely?

Could you say that again, ahinton, a little more slowly?

[Nick Armstrong]

Could you say that again, ahinton, a little more slowly?

I've just realised on another thread that our ah is the Henry James of the forum!

[jean]

There can't be any beginnings (or middles or endings for that matter) without singling out, which is a function of language rather than the way the universe operates...

I'd say that language attempts to delineate 'the way the universe operates'. When the evangelist wrote In the beginning was the Word, he probably believed that time progressed in a linear way from a fixed beginning which was the Creation; but since Time and everything else was created by God, God must have been there already at that beginning (the Word was with God, and the Word was God.)

So I can't see the tautology any more clearly as a result of your explanation!

It gets worse:

...it's the use of the past tense by means of the word "was" that gives it away; if it's the "beginning", there could be no "was"...

But if the writer believes that time moves- or we move through it - in a linear fashion, then if we look back at some previous point and wish to talk abut it, we will use a past tense. If it were not so, there would be no use for a past tense at all.

I believe St Augustine proposed that God exists in a timeless present, but St John had not heard about that when he wrote.

[ahinton]

Could you say that again, ahinton, a little more slowly?

Why, of course - with pleasure!

But apostrophes or none...

...be they appropriate or be they not...

...and regardless of the extent, if any of "political statement"...

...and irrespective of whether such political statement (if any) has, or be thought to have, a "place here"...

that "message" has already been lost, surely?

Is that slow enough for you or would you prefer a metronome mark of crotchet equals rather less than the above?

[ahinton]

I've just realised on another thread that our ah is the Henry James of the forum!

Flattery will get you (if anywhere at all) - er - somewhere other than where you might hope that it would do!

[ahinton]

But if the writer believes that time moves- or we move through it - in a linear fashion, then if we look back at some previous point and wish to talk abut it, we will use a past tense. If it were not so, there would be no use for a past tense at all.

I believe St Augustine proposed that God exists in a timeless present, but St John had not heard about that when he wrote.

But since we cannot be certain what the writer believes or rather believed (and in any event one has to take on baord what this might or might not mean to an agnostic or atheist), we can be sure of nothing else about this! - and as in any case I'm not about to get into any argument about how St. Augustine and St. John might have differed on this for whatever reason/s or none, let's therefore leave it on one side while we consider (if indeed so we must) the matter by looking at how Tippett's The Vision of St. Augustine might compare with Schmidt's Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln in the context of the latter's concern with the revelation/s of St. John the Divine...

...or something...

[Nick Armstrong]

Flattery will get you (if anywhere at all) - er - somewhere other than where you might hope that it would do!

I'll stick to stamp collecting thanks, ah!

[ahinton]

I'll stick to stamp collecting thanks, ah!

Well, one might suppose that sticking and stamp collection do have at least something in common (not that I'm a stamp collector)...

[Nick Armstrong]

(not that I'm a stamp collector)...

Nor am I! But it still seems the preferable option!

[gurnemanz]

I'd say that language attempts to delineate 'the way the universe operates'. When the evangelist wrote In the beginning was the Word, he probably believed that time progressed in a linear way from a fixed beginning which was the Creation; but since Time and everything else was created by God, God must have been there already at that beginning (the Word was with God, and the Word was God.)

So I can't see the tautology any more clearly as a result of your explanation!

It gets worse:


But if the writer believes that time moves- or we move through it - in a linear fashion, then if we look back at some previous point and wish to talk abut it, we will use a past tense. If it were not so, there would be no use for a past tense at all.

I believe St Augustine proposed that God exists in a timeless present, but St John had not heard about that when he wrote.

I'm no theologian and as a linguist have always taken "In the beginning was the word" to mean that man only started to exist with his/her acqisition of language as a means of giving expression to what was in the mind and communicating this to others. What has always fascinated me is the process by which clusters of non-linguistic, non-linear thoughts, ideas concepts etc are transformed by us by means of syntax into a linear stream of words which we call language.

[french frank]

I'm no theologian and as a linguist have always taken "In the beginning was the word" to mean that man only started to exist with his/her acqisition of language as a means of giving expression to what was in the mind and communicating this to others. What has always fascinated me is the process by which clusters of non-linguistic, non-linear thoughts, ideas concepts etc are transformed by us by means of syntax into a linear stream of words which we call language.

But 'Word' here translates Λόγος/Logos which had a specific meaning in Christian writing. Very loosely translated as 'the Word of God'. I thought 'In the beginning &c.' meant something like 'Before anything else existed there was God and his Word and what he intended for the world which he hadn't yet created'.

[oddoneout]

But 'Word' here translates Λόγος/Logos which had a specific meaning in Christian writing. Very loosely translated as 'the Word of God'. I thought 'In the beginning &c.' meant something like 'Before anything else existed there was God and his Word and what he intended for the world which he hadn't yet created'.

That was always the sense in which I heard and 'understood' it.

[jean]

But 'Word' here translates Λόγος/Logos which had a specific meaning in Christian writing...

Indeed. But I think your translation is a bit too loose, given the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

It's always interested me that the word order is different in the Greek (and in Jerome's Latin) -Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος - the Word was with God, and God was the Word. Why did the KJV change it?

And don't forget that The Word became flesh...