Funny Quote on Technology Guaranteed to Make You Laugh or Your Money Back (If You Do Laugh, Would You Consider Giving Me Some Money?)
From John Dyer’s From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology :
When it comes to technology, each generation sees the issue from a slightly different perspective. Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once grouped technology into three categories. First, “everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.” Then, “anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.” Finally, “anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”
When I’m Having a Bad Day
When I’m having a bad day, I just read my blog comment spam. Here’s a sample from an actual comment a spammer calling himself “Forrest Enget” tried to leave on my site just a few minutes ago:
This is the very first time I frequented your website page and so far? I amazed with the analysis you made to make this actual publish amazing. Great job!
I’m a bit puzzled by the second sentence, but overall this is a real encouragement in the dog-eat-dog world of blogging. It’s a thankless job, blogging—except when you hear from “Dominique Behunin”:
I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this blog. I’m hoping the same high-grade website post from you in the upcoming also. Actually your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a great example of it.
I don’t get a whole lot of spam. I guess most spammers feel that, in all honesty, they can’t say nice things about my particular blog, so they move on to another blog they can praise in good conscience. But it’s nice that a few squeak through. All you spammers out there in Nigeria, may I say a humble “thank you” for your much-needed support? Or let me put it in language you can better understand:
A spammer necessarily help to make helpfully posts I might state! It is much of them so excellent that a favourable impressions were had by all!
Another Bibles International Story
Some Bibles International consultants have used an interview format to help teach certain skills to native translators.
One team of national believers prepares a set of interview questions for a particular Bible character and another prepares to be interviewed as that Bible character.
Only one representative of each group gets up in front of the whole assembly.
But when they did this in the African country of Chad, everybody in the audience started shouting out the answers to the questions.
The consultant said, “Wait, it’s Noah who’s being interviewed!”
The people replied, “Oh, yes, but we’re Noah’s sons and he’s getting old and forgetful!”
How to Pronounce “Logos” in “Logos Bible Software”
How do you pronounce "Logos" in "Logos Bible Software"? Are the O’s long or short? Should it be LAH-GAHS or LOW-GOESS? Or maybe both? LAH-GOES? LOH-GAHS?
I have the answer.
It’s "LAH-GAHS." Both O’s are short. There. Debate over. Make this post a Wikipedia footnote, somebody.
You want reasons? Okay.
- Usage determines pronunciation. Most evangelical Christian pastors, Bible teachers, and students (the people who buy Logos products) know at least a few Greek words—words which, effectively, have become English words (among Christians, anyway). Ἀγάπη (agape) is one. Λόγος (logos) is another. It appears most famously in John 1, where Jesus is said to be the divine logos, the Word who was “with God” and who “was God.” Christians know that logos means “word,” and this is clearly what “Logos Bible Software” is getting at: putting you in contact with the words of Scripture. All Christians in my admittedly less-than-universal experience pronounce this word with two short O’s: LAH-GAHS.*
- The reason Christians do this is that their pastors did. The reason pastors do it is that their Greek teachers did. The reasons Greek teachers have for doing it are multiple, and one of them I admit I’m a little unclear on: as best I can tell after searching and reading for several years, no one knows for certain how Koine Greek words were pronounced in the time of the New Testament. So English-speaking Greek teachers have adopted the wholly salutary practice of distinguishing between omicron (Ο) and omega (Ω) by making the first short and the second long. This distinction aids learning, because students would no doubt substitute English pronunciation rules otherwise and would confuse the two letters. It’s possible that we shouldn’t be so arbitrary but should make an earnest attempt to speak Greek as Paul and Peter did. Might some exegetical or textual-critical tangle be solved by appealing to pronunciation? Perhaps, but I have almost never seen it done.
- And this gets us back to the first reason: it doesn’t matter how the Greek word was pronounced in the first century. What matters is what people say now. Admittedly, in the language of the non-Christian world—around which Christian theological terminology hovers on the fringe—Logos is pronounced LOH-gahs. But very few people outside the church know or care about Logos Bible Software; I say we should use the pronunciation current in the only usage community relevant to the discussion, American conservative evangelical Christianity.
- There are a few possible homonyms which, on balance, it might be best to avoid since we can: Logos is clearly not the plural of logo, as in a little image that a company uses on their signs, so LOW-GOEZ is out. It’s also clearly not the former capital of Nigeria. No LAH-GOES.
- Dale Pritchett said it’s LAH-GAHS. (No matter that Bob Pritchett said the opposite. Honor your father.)
All that said… There’s no rule against having more than one pronunciation for a given word. I just find it a little odd that the company itself is divided… Even the two founders are. Perhaps, if Logos did an internal study, they would find that people more loyal to Dale Pritchett follow his pronunciation while others follow Bob’s. Perhaps we’re looking at a future company split, sort of like a church split, but one that rips in half the libraries of pastors everywhere! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! This problem must be solved!
*If I’m wrong about what most Christians say, then this whole post pretty much goes out the window. Perhaps I am guilty of hearing only East-Coast Christians, sort of like assuming that everyone says “pop,” unaware of the regional variations in names for soda. I think this would make a great undergraduate linguistics statistics paper. (And “Linguistics Statistics” would make a great name for an undergraduate class…)
A T-Shirt Design for Typography Nerd/Elitist Wannabes Like Me
I laughed out loud, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
The FREE (!) Dissertation-Writing Service that I Used
There is a great dissertation-writing service online that is completely FREE!
You have to add appropriate footnotes, and it takes a while to produce a finished document of 300 pages, but with this helpful tool you, too, can get a Ph.D.
It was created for the art world originally, but it worked great for me. For my dissertation, I just did some find-and-replace work to remove art terms and put in theological ones (dadaism became the New Perspective on Paul, for example). But some terms are both artistic and theological (existentialism, inspiration), so it wasn’t as much work as you would think.
(Please ignore the second paragraph on the page. It was added after I began using this service.)
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