Monthly Archives: June 2006

Language and Order

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Witnessing all the recent hubbub about new English mass translation that’s just been approved by US bishops and the ever-present tensions between rival Bible translators, I thought the following quite from Peter Berger’s The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion might provoke interesting discussion.

"The social world constitutes a nomos both objectively and subjectively. The objective nomos is given in the process of objectivation as such. the fact of language, even if taken by itself, can readily be seen as the imposition of order upon experience. Language nomizes by imposing differentiation and structure upon the ongoing flux of experience. As an item of experience is named, it is ipso facto, taken out of this flux and given stability as the entity so named. Language further provides a fundamental order of relationships by the addition of syntax and grammar to vocabulary. It is impossible to use language without participating in its order. Every empirical language may be said to constitute a nomos in the making, or, with equal validity, as the historical consequence of the nomizing activity of generations of men. The original nomizing act is to say that an item is this, and thus not that. As this original incorporation of the item into the order that includes other items is followed by sharper linguistic designations (the item is male and not female, singular and not plural, a noun and not a verb, and so forth), the nomizing act intends a comprehensive order of all items that may be linguistically objectivated, that is, intends a totalizing nomos.

What I primarily take from this is the importance of word choice for the recording and transmission of information, i.e., order. When we translate Scripture or liturgies to modern languages, we must be mindful of a few important questions.

  • What sort of order did the original author(s) intend to impose with the words they chose?
  • What sort of order do we wish to impose with the words we choose?
  • If these orders do not match, why do they not, and how should that affect our translation efforts?

Womb Wars

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Here’s an interesting study in contrasts.

Period: Full Stop?
For Many Women, a ‘Normal’ Menstrual Cycle Is Now One They Can Control — or Suppress

"Encouraged by drug marketers, more women are opting to reduce the length or frequency of their menstrual periods, or skip them altogether — and even trading tips online for how to do it."

Forever Pregnant
Guidelines: Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-Pregnant

"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves — and to be treated by the health care system — as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon."

Thoughts?

2006 Us Too Father’s Days 10K

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[Us Too 10K bib]Well, that could have gone better.

I didn’t suck as badly as I did in the 2005 Great Race, but I’m not thrilled with my performance in the Us Too Father’s Day 10K. I placed 15th out of 22 men in the 20-29 age group and 179 out of 277 finishers with a time of 58:29. That’s a pathetic 9:25 pace. I’d hoped to finish under 45:00 if possible and definitely under 50:00. I think the biggest think that hurt me was the heat. It was a humid 80+° morning and there weren’t many water stations.

The insufficient water was my only major beef with an otherwise well-organized race. There was a station at about mile 1 and then another around mile 4. There might have been a third that i’m forgetting, but the point is that water stations were few and far between. The Great Race last year was a scorcher, but there was plenty of water along the route. Having so little water on such a hot day strikes me as pretty irresponsible. To make matters worse, by the time 10K racers were finished, 5K racers and their friends/families had taken all the bottled water. All that was left a guy pouring from a gallon jug into the same tiny cups used at the water stations. *grumble*

I’m still on the lookout for July and August races. If you know of any good ones, please let me know.

P.S. "No strollers" means "NO FREAKIN’ STROLLERS, @$$#*%&!!!"