The English Language

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
So, you should have added "exists" or rearranged your sentence to make it more clear.
"the reason why the common claim" seems to me a dangling fragment.........

I think you failed to read to the end of the sentence;

is the reason why the common claim "The Bible can't be trusted because it's a translation" is an invalid argument.

Subject; "the common claim", where "common" is the adjective.
Verb; "is"
Predicate; "an invalid argument".
"The Bible can't be trusted etc" is in the right place, designating the content of the claim.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
I wasn't offended at all. What word in that post suggested that I was offended? But you had already told us that you had an "issue" with the Bible, connected with the Bible being translated, and I was trying to find out what the issue was supposed to be.
It was the word "issue" that turned it into an argument, as far as I was concerned. I was more puzzled than anything else, because I couldn't see how the comments about translation added up to "an issue with the Bible".
My question was a request for clarification- "What's going on?"

a reply to: DISRAELI

Oh!! okay.

Yes - here's the issue:

we have no primary source documentation of anything at all from 1 BC to whenever (1?) AD. So - that all by itself is an issue.

When was the switchover? Was the date of birth the "BC/AD" moment? Or was it when he reappeared as a young man?

Also - he didn't write anything down - and nothing that any of his contemporaries wrote down (if anything) is up for scrutiny, either. It is ALL piece-mealed together speculation, translated from dead languages 10-or better generations removed, into other languages.

I just don't see how any --- and I mean A N Y ---- 'translation' can be accurate or trusted. That is my issue.

"Preserved word of God" is an oxymoron. A hopeless exaggeration. A myth.

That's all.
But - I have LOTS of respect for you in your focus to try to at least clarify a big percentage. It's just that you'll never get to where everyone agrees with you. It would be impossible (and artificial) to claim......

I could very well do a Don Quixote examination --- from the original "Spain" Spanish (Castilian) into Mexican Spanish, into Americanized Spanglish, into proper "journalistic" American English, and even then into Shakespearean (Elizabethan) English....and back again. And EACH VERSION would be different.

One must be intimately aware of nuance, and idiom, and sarcasm, and imagery, and historical reference, and all of that.

It is a very precise thing -

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Debut was just in the Mudpit.....

FRANTUCKINGMEDIATELY

I found it in situ

get me the FRANTUCKINGMEDIATELY out of here!

I was going to say that it would take a hyphendufenator to jam adverbs together like that. From the original 1996 usage of the word hyphendufenator.

To my shock I discovered the word used completely differently in just the last month:

I wanted to see if there was some stupidly simple hack that I could do to fix it myself like - "Just turn the TV upside down and give it two shakes to the right and left... flip it back over... rub your belly in counter clockwise gyrations on the middle of screen that sits over the hyphendufenator panel behind the glass... turn the TV on and off four times and the problem should be fixed."
mistakes-content-marketing-strategy

Either that's the same guy who made up the word or it has caught on slightly, albeit changed in meaning.

a reply to: pthena

I was going to say that it would take a hyphendufenator to jam adverbs together like that. From the original 1996 usage of the word hyphendufenator.

OMG hyphendufenator? Really? Did you just say "hyphendufenator"?



OMG I thought I was the only person in the universe who ever heard that word....

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

So when did you first hear it? 1996 for me. A guy named Tom I worked with.

a reply to: pthena

Oh....long time ago. Joey Baggadonuts said it once.

I think. There were glow-in-the-dark stars up on the black-painted ceiling, though. I remember that.
And a big Chinese dragon painted on the front door.....

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
we have no primary source documentation of anything at all from 1 BC to whenever (1?) AD. So - that all by itself is an issue.

We don't have the original manuscripts of anything else from that time either. Hardly an issue exclusively with the Bible.

When was the switchover? Was the date of birth the "BC/AD" moment? Or was it when he reappeared as a young man?

1 B.C. is notionally the first twelve months before his birth, and A.D. 1 is notionally the first twelve months afterwards, which implies that he was born (for calculation purposes) at the midnight between the two years. But how exactly is that a "translation" issue with the Bible? The concept may be a puzzle until people get it straight in their minds, but how exactly is it an "issue" of any kind?

Also - he didn't write anything down - and nothing that any of his contemporaries wrote down (if anything) is up for scrutiny, either.

That isn't a "translation" issue either. Documents exist, whatever the source, and we can't read them unless we get them translated.

It is ALL piece-mealed together speculation, translated from dead languages 10-or better generations removed, into other languages.

This is an exaggerated case. I have already pointed out, but can repeat, that Greek did not die. There was a continuous tradition, in the Greek-speaking world, of reading the Greek New Testament, just as there is a continuous tradition of the reading of Shakespeare in the English speaking world. This tradition lasted long enough that knowledge of how to read the language could be transmitted to the west. I understand there's also been a continuous tradition of the reading of Hebrew.

I just don't see how any --- and I mean A N Y ---- 'translation' can be accurate or trusted.

How exactly is the problem any worse than it is in the case of other Greek or Latin literature?
Translation needs to be done, so people do their best to obtain the best rendering that they can.
You have demonstrated that translations need to be treated cautiously, and I have already agreed with you on that.
But it is a little absurd to hype that up into a total rejection of translation. You would not apply that to literature in general.

"Preserved word of God" is an oxymoron. A hopeless exaggeration. A myth.

This may be the root of the problem. You have got me confused with the person who uses this phrase, and that's what you're arguing against.
You are intent on proving that the perfect translation is impossible.
My response to that is "OK, so we use the imperfect one". The pragmatic solution. No big deal.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

That sounds further back than '96.

Remember back before the Mandela effect? When time travelers had to ask questions like "do you remember what you were doing when JFK got shot?"

If someone replied, "What? When did he get shot?" or "Who?" , then they would slip around the corner into the alley to reset.

Tom and I were talking about that, then he said "Or ask them to adjust the hyphendufenator. ...ha ha "
And I said, "The what?"
He turned pale and said, "Excuse me just a moment" and stepped around the corner. Twenty seconds later he returned and asked, "Now what were we talking about?" I then noticed that the mustard stain on the lower right edge of his shirt was no longer there.

a reply to: pthena

Remember back before the Mandela effect? When time travelers had to ask questions like "do you remember what you were doing when JFK got shot?"

If someone replied, "What? When did he get shot?" or "Who?" , then they would slip around the corner into the alley to reset.

Tom and I were talking about that, then he said "Or ask them to adjust the hyphendufenator. ...ha ha "

Okay...hold on a sec.
First of all, I don't even know (or really care) what the "Mandela Effect" is supposed to be.
(I also don't care about "Pokemon Go", for those who might be wondering....)

When JFK got shot I was watching the Flintstones, sitting on the carpet in front of the black and white tv in the house in Wildwood. There was a weeping willow out back. Once my aunt tried to flush a roll of paper towels, and I thought it would flood. And then it did.

Anyway.....I was just pretending to have heard the "hyphendufenator" ---- that's really a new one for me.

But now that we're on nonsense morphwords, yeah - let's go!!!!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Anyway.....I was just pretending to have heard the "hyphendufenator" ---- that's really a new one for me.

So that would make the usage I quoted from the marketing strategy web post only the second time I've heard it used.

Tom and I were discussing alternate parallel universes at the time (what's referred to as Mandela effect these days). We were play acting the scenario when he came up with the word hyphendufenator on the spot. The stepping around the corner was part of the act. The mustard stain, I just made that up as an amusement for the last post.

I don't have any other words at the moment. Leastwise the thread's been bumped.

a reply to: pthena

discussing alternate parallel universes at the time (what's referred to as Mandela effect these days)

Yeah? is that what the "Mandela effect" is?

Just three days ago I was at a bon-voyage party for my best friend's daughter....and a kid walked in with his dad....
and I happened to be standing next to my bestie...and he said, "I thought she was....."

And I said, "We both are. You see, you are in a parallel universe/dimension"

I didn't know it had that name now.
Like they tried to reinvent the low-carb diet. We had that back in the late 70s......

New one today:

"freech"


Contraction of "free speech" or "freedom of speech".....or we could even do "to freech" as a verb!


He was freeching.....

Did anyone hear that fantastic freech by Smarty McSmartpants?

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
Do you ever get the lurgi?
Or "a lurgi"?
The word has entered popular speech to mean "unspecified illness, not very serious".
E.g "Did you have a good weekend?" "No, I caught a lurgi and spent all day in bed".

It actually goes back to an episode of the radio series, the Goon Show, when the symptoms were more serious;

(Peter Sellars is one of those voices and several of the characters)

a reply to: DISRAELI

Nooo...that has to be an England thing? Or somewhere UK?

I know "lugie" ---- and that's a disgusting glob of mucus sucked into the throat from the sinuses and spit out.

It nauseates me. PHLEGM is one of the things that I find absolutely revolting......




Anyway ------

freech

"free speech".....

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
Yes, it was a BBC radio show, so people outside Britain would not have heard it.

New one today you guys!!!

Cardswipery


def: the process of swiping a card during a monetary transaction...esp. Fraudulent or Reckless or misleading or conniving handling of the individual's card credentials.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
New one today you guys!!!
Cardswipery
def: the process of swiping a card during a monetary transaction...esp. Fraudulent or Reckless or misleading or conniving handling of the individual's card credentials.

0

Cool!

Their tomfoolery regarding cardswipery left them vulnerable to fraud.

Sorry Buzzy! I couldn't help myself.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

Cardswipery is one of the most egregious offenses known to modern man!!!!

Here are two more:

RENTS

Def: Short for "parents." The parental units who are paying all expenses for their youthful adults to go to school. Paying the rent.


And...

WIPES

A simple descriptive suffix to indicate wiping of the prefix.....contextually subjective reference to 'jerk' synonyms.