When jokes are terrible

Commenting on the 9th commandment, "You shall not be a false witness against your neighbour." [Ex. 20:16], Calvin says: "Indeed, this precept even extends to forbidding us to affect a fawning politeness barbed with bitter taunts under the guise of joking. Some do this who crave praise for their witticisms, to others' shame and grief, because they sometimes grievously wound their brothers with this sort of impudence. [...] For it is absurd to think that God hates the disease of evilspeaking in the tongue, but does not disapprove of evil intent in the heart." (Calvin, Institutes, II. viii. section 48.)

Use the language people use and understand

"[Satan] has often made use of obsolete forms of speech, that under this mask he may cloak his impostures."
  -- Calvin, Institutes I. viii.

My take from this is: Beware of archaic words and phrases. Speak and write in a way that is clear to the audience.

Something about the often-used phrase, "do church"

Carl Trueman shares his thoughts on a current trend of using the phrase, "do church":

There is, however, another, more serious, problem I have with the phrase, "do church." This is the fact that it is the active voice that is used. Church, according to this linguistic phrase, is something we do. Thus, my concern is not simply that this phrase is not just another trendy cliché – we can all fall prey to such silliness – but that it represents defective theology.

Read the whole thing.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

My Engrish - 26-Dec-2007

In the past week, the most memorable Engrish I spoke was:

I'm from Scottish!

Of course I meant to say I'm from Scotland. I was trying to imitate the Scottish accent, and I ended up hearing my friend say, "you need to learn English first..."

Bonus:
My friend Hank was excited while playing Monopoly today, and said, "Hey, it's $25 for one houses each!" What! One houses each!! Bhwahahaha But then, what can I say, I am the one who once said, "let's read one verses each" and "let's take photo of one feet each!"

Gosh...

Why speak English when I can speak Engrish?

I am born in South-Korea and came to Australia when I was 16.
As you can imagine (or at least you can tell) that I still struggle to grasp the language of Australia, English. I am not very self-assertive person, nor very out-going. In fact, I am very introverted, reflective, and introspective.

This personality of mine plays on how I speak in English time to time. At times, when I am with people I am not quite comfortable with, I struggle much more than usual to speak in English. Pronunciations that I am familiar enough normally around my close friends become much more challenging when I am at some unfamiliar place or even at work. I forget the phrases I know, and stuff up the grammar I am used to.
When I make a mistake, I feel embarrassed, and it makes me even less confident about how I speak, then I speak even less and struggle more and end up making more mistakes. Such goes the vicious spiral downwards...

But, when I think about it, I don't really need to be self-conscious and feel embarrassed. It probably will help me to be a bit more light-hearted about it and laugh when I make mistakes or someone points them out.

So, here's what I'll do on my blog.
Time to time, when I make a mistake speaking in English, I'll post it up here.

and... first of such posts, here it goes...


Few days ago, actually, it was a few weeks ago now... (I saved this post a while back) I was at work, and was talking to another programmer, Nick. We were discussing a programming issue we had been trying to resolve, and decided to talk to another programmer/supervisor, Dan. When I checked to see if he was at his desk, he wasn't, and I said to Nick, "eh... maybe later, he's not on his desk."

!!!

'on his desk???'

I felt my face warming up.
'He's not AT his desk, not ON!'

All these 'at', 'on', 'in', 'by', and such words always confuse me.

Well, my good work colleague did not say anything about my statement, but just understood what I meant and didn't make me feel more embarrassed. Thanks, mate!