Re: OT: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives

On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 07:06, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> -- Tristan <kesuari@...> wrote:
>
> > 'Our father in heaven' is transparent.
>
> And I will agree is better than the 'new' English
> version.
It's the only 'new' version I've actually heard used. I've heard your
version (who is), but I haven't actually heard it used.

> This being a direct translation of the
> Greek (which has its own problems in the Western
> tradition, since the Western language is Latin,
> and the Western text is Vulgate).
>
> > I doubt anyone's going to have trouble with
> > that.
>
> Which is totally beside the point. People of all
> education levels get along wonderfully with the
> elevated speech found in KJV (which is on par
> with the standard English paternoster).
That doesn't mean that everyone gets along wonderfully with the elevated
speech found in the KJV. I've spoken to people whose church insisted
upon the use of the KJV, and they'd come to insist up on it, too. They
had trouble with many expressions (generally a case of mis-translating).

> > But when I was in primary
> > school, do you know how many people were
> > praying 'Our father who aren't
> > in heaven'?
>
> None? We actually had teachers that taught us
> what the words were and what we were saying.
So did we, but a lot of the population seems to be slow learners (or
refuse to learn what they're taught about language). *I* knew what it
meant, but even in grade five, people had to be corrected.

> > 'Our father who art in heaven'
> > simply didn't make sense;
>
> Well, neither do a lot of things unless someone
> _tells_ us!
>
> Would you prefer Yeats or Poe or Tolkien be
> dumbed down to a first grade reading level, just
> so it "makes sense" to the most people? Sad.
Yeats, Poe and Tolkien are on a completely different plain to religion.
But at one stage, yes, they should be translated. That doesn't mean they
won't be available untranslated, or that people who want to read the
original shouldn't be able to (consider Chaucer or Beowulf), but having
it available in a way that more people will understand is only a good
thing.

OTOH, if the Catholic Church still had Mass in Latin, they would still
have more troubles. I can go to Mass and say every single word I'm
supposed to without even thinking about it.

and Michael Poxon wrote...
> Huh! I went to a posh grammar school and we had to *sing* the Lord's
> Prayer!
Yeah, I'm sure we've all had to do that. (All that went to a school that
made use of the Our Father, at least.)


--

Tristan.

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