The Trouble with Words

Old Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, originally uploaded by Pix from the Field.

I love words. There's nothing like opening up a dictionary and finding the meaning of a word. Formal, colloquial, slang, archaic--the category often varies, but the results are the same. Curiosity satisfied, and knowledge gained.

My love of dictionaries probably started at an early age with my penchant for books and the advent of my father's dinner table discussions. It continued throughout my educational experiences and flourished in the most unlikely of places--my college Creative Writing class.

For me, Creative Writing was an unlikely place to foster my love of words, because, truth be told, the class became the bane of my sophomore year. My struggles in that class had very little to do with my instructor and a lot to do with my innate analytical tendencies coupled with perfectionism--in short, I wasn't ready to be "creative" and "vulnerable" with my writing. Exposition, not narrative, was my strength.

However, one assignment I did enjoy and excel at was assembling a creative writing notebook--I believe this project salvaged my deplorable grade in EN 301. Of the five sections I had to include, the one I enjoyed the most was the one entitled "Word Lists, Facts, and Games." I honestly enjoyed researching idioms, or figures of speech--phrases like "bed of roses" and "New York minute" that don't mean much apart from their cultural context. Or, as the definition from American Heritage Dictionary cited by dictionary.com clearly states:

id·i·om (ĭd'ē-əm) noun A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.

Some of the idioms I found most fun were the Spanish and French idioms that were amusing when translated into English. Here are some examples I gleaned from Suzanne Brock's resource Idiom's Delight:

• ¡Véte a freír esparragos! Literal translation? Go fry asparagus! In English, we say, "Go fly a kite!" I guess the Spanish don't eat much asparagus.

• Tengo un gallo en la garanta. Literally, I have a rooster in my throat. Americans have slimy frogs, not scratchy birds, in our throats--makes for easier swallowing. (Sorry for the visual.)
  

• La brebis galeuse de la famille. It means the mangy sheep of the family in French. A little more pitiable than the black sheep, I think.

Now, I won't subject you to too much more of my logophilia (love of words), but what struck me fifteen years ago as I was researching those foreign language idioms was how the meaning unequivocally vanished in direct translation. All of the cultural identity and metaphoric understanding of the idiom disappeared when interpreted into another language. Although misusing idioms can be fodder for humorous stories, misusing certain words or phrases could make assimilating into a foreign culture awkward and slow at best.

Just as we can completely miss the meaning of someone retorting, "Oh, go fry asparagus!" the same disruption can occur when we are discussing theological concepts. Something important can be "lost in translation," making us both unaware of false teaching and spiritually handicapped in our own pursuit of truth. This misunderstanding can occur for several reasons:

• We define words based on our experiences with those words--very powerful when the experience is negative.
• We rely on the definitions that we've heard or learned from other people, putting too much weight in one human being's interpretation.
• We align the word's meaning with our own agenda, whether that be self-justification, manipulation of others, or self-advancement.
• We assume that our finite minds can completely comprehend an infinite God's message.

Now, I may be accused of thinking too much for my own good. Sometimes that is true--too much thinking and not enough doing can, as Edmund Burke warned, let evil triumph. But when you believe that your life choices have eternal ramifications, I think that more thinking before speaking or acting is a good thing.

For the next few posts, I want us to seriously consider how we define the concept of grace. I believe that honest-to-goodness Christians with good motives and even better intentions can completely miss how to live authentically Christ-like, fittingly human lives.

So, what do you think gets "lost in the translation" when we talk about Biblical concepts and doctrine? What can disappear when we move the concept from infinite to finite, from eternal to temporal, from ancient language to modern English? It's worth the discussion.