My Pastor Lied to Me
- Thread starter ThankQ
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This is how I heard it too.
I just thought it was supposed to be Michael Jackson's story...
I just can't fathom how anyone in their right mind can think this to be true: I mean, have they no idea that English actually derive from previous languages? This is just stupid, epic level stupid.
I've heard that, too, but only second hand. It only works in English, though, and only as long as you don't learn any other European languages who have similar words for history, which derive from the Greek/Latin word.
Since we use a totally different word for history in German, oddly enough, it's not pervasive here. And when I first heard of this idea by my older brother (I must have been in 5th grade or so), I knew it couldn't be true because I already knew the word was derived from Latin.
I had not heard the "history" one, but I have heard from several people who believed that the word "Atonement" really did come from "At One Ment." That is, the Atonement helped us to become "at one" with God. I always thought that one was not only clearly linguistically incorrect but theologically questionable as well.
On a much less spiritual note, some people have told me that the F-Word was originally a police acronym referring to rape or underage sex: "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge". I guess someone from Van Halen heard that last one. Of course, it's not true either.
On a much less spiritual note, some people have told me that the F-Word was originally a police acronym referring to rape or underage sex: "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge". I guess someone from Van Halen heard that last one. Of course, it's not true either.
Well, for me, I was like 13 or 14, with exactly no understanding of any language concepts, as I said.
But come on. Take a poll (where people can't look it up before they answer.
Billy Shakes was ______?
Old English
Middle English
Modern English
Most are gonna say "Old". But he's Modern.
Okay, surely Ol' Geoff was Old English:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote
NOPE! Middle.
What's Old English...? well, German, pretty much.
This is not "common knowledge" stuff, at least not in the US.
And in the early 90s, it's not like you could easily run home to any of the internets to look up something.
Plus, when a Pastor says something, 'round these here parts, anyway, the usual response isn't, "You sure?", it's "Amen".
Well, I'd say that the case of history is more evident. You only need to have heard it in another language to have doubts.
Concerning Old/Middle/Modern English, don't you learn these things at school?
Learning about the older versions of German is pretty normal at school here. Usually you end up reading at least the poems of Walther von der Vogelheide, if not the Nibelungenlied.
Concerning Old/Middle/Modern English, don't you learn these things at school?
Learning about the older versions of German is pretty normal at school here. Usually you end up reading at least the poems of Walther von der Vogelheide, if not the Nibelungenlied.
Yeah, I know. I was obviously talking about adults.
Well, I hope that people know at least that English is not only language spoken in the history of the world and that Moses, Jesus or Caesar did not actually speak it.
And I see the problem there. In matter other than faith, preaches and pastors ought to have no more leverage than any other guy. I have no problems with faith. I have with mindlessness, tho.
Well, in Spanish it's historia (both story and history). So, knowing that I'd be skeptical since I'd doubt the Spanish would have taken this word from English.
Well, the native English speakers don't speak both languanges.
The level of deliberate stupid in encounter in Oklahoma on a daily basis... I don't know how to describe it.
To half the people who discover I'm an atheist, I have to explain to them, "No no no, I don't worship Satan. If there's no little guy on the right shoulder, there's no little guy on the left shoulder." Really. To half the people.
They only change in language most people are aware of is King James to NIV.
No, we haven't learned anything like that in school...I'm not even sure what it means myself, and I'm about to graduate with a Masters degree. Language classes are all about handwriting and writing book reports in school. In middle school we did spend some time focusing on Latin suffixes and prefixes to better understand the origins of some words but I don't think it was something we were even tested on.
And we don't often hear other languages much unless our parents speak one. There are a lot of Spanish speakers around here but I don't think "history" is really a word that comes up in conversation much. I took four years of French in high school but most people only take the minimum foreign language requirement, which is one or two years.
(sigh) This reminds me of another example of pastoral linguistic fuck-ups. This one guy who preaches for a living tried to convince me that the number of languages in the world is proof of the tower of babel story. Supposedly "scholars", looking at the genealogies in the Bible calculated that, at the time of the building of the tower, there would've been something like 4000 families in the world. So each one must've started speaking something else, and went and settled all the corners of the world. (I love it when they outright make shit up in the name of pointing to a greater truth. Or are they just stupid and not know about language groups?) I said something like, "well there's more like 6000 languages in the world. Also, I speak something called a Slavic language, which means it belongs to a larger group of related languages that share an ancestral tongue, thus retaining similar grammars and vocabulary. For example, I understand some Russian. Serbian didn't just whiz into existence." 
I don't understand people like that, though. Was he trying to dispute evolution by saying languages don't evolve either? Idiotic. He also doesn't believe extrasolar rocky planets were truly discovered ("these scientists, they don't actually see those planets, it's all about some stupid wiggle thing"), because the bible says god created the earth and stars, not earth and stars that have other earths in their orbits. To which I answered, "well, the bible says nothing about the planets in this system either. I think people used to call them stars."
I don't understand people like that, though. Was he trying to dispute evolution by saying languages don't evolve either? Idiotic. He also doesn't believe extrasolar rocky planets were truly discovered ("these scientists, they don't actually see those planets, it's all about some stupid wiggle thing"), because the bible says god created the earth and stars, not earth and stars that have other earths in their orbits. To which I answered, "well, the bible says nothing about the planets in this system either. I think people used to call them stars."
They called them wandering stars, it is where the term planet comes from................................
Related to the post by O'Dib, although it was not a pastor being dumb: I read today that the council of a town in our national Bible belt was upset because archeologists released a report that people had been living in that are for at least 6,000 years, if not longer. But how can that be if the earth is only 6,000 years old? They're now trying to get a paragraph added to the official report that the scientific estimates about the dates may be wrong... 
Seriously, some people should simply never talk about science.
Anyway, that was quite unrelated, back to your scheduled viewing.
Seriously, some people should simply never talk about science.
Anyway, that was quite unrelated, back to your scheduled viewing.
What your pastor told you is what's known as a folk etymology, i.e., an invented but plausible-sounding story of how a word originated. There are hundreds of these bogus word origins, and we're all familiar with a few of them. You've probably heard that butterfly is a spoonerism of "flutter by"; that posh is an acronym of "Port Out, Starboard Home" (referring to the preferred cabins on ocean voyages due to prevailing winds); or variations on "Fornication Under Control of the King" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" . . .well, you get the idea.
Since acronyms have been common in English only for the last half-century or so, any word that was in use before the age of jet planes and television is almost certainly NOT an acronym.
Another feminist myth, dating from the 1970s, is that the common phrase rule of thumb refers to an old English law allowing a man to beat his wife so long as he used a stick no thicker than his thumb. No such law ever existed.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html
Since acronyms have been common in English only for the last half-century or so, any word that was in use before the age of jet planes and television is almost certainly NOT an acronym.
Then, according to feminist reasoning, since hernias are much more common in men than they are in women, they should be called “hisnias.”
Another feminist myth, dating from the 1970s, is that the common phrase rule of thumb refers to an old English law allowing a man to beat his wife so long as he used a stick no thicker than his thumb. No such law ever existed.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html
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