Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

Since the most recent changes to the Roman Missal almost every Sunday we’ve been saying:

through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault; …

I’ve noticed that in our congregation almost everyone says “grievious” as opposed to “grievous.” I knew that sometimes speakers insert an “-i-” into words like “grievous” and “mischievous.”  But, I didn’t realize that this was perhaps becoming the dominant way of pronouncing the word. My guess is that it’s probably on analogy with words like “devious” and “previous.” Has anyone else noticed if this is becoming the primary way that “grievous” is pronounced?  Or, is this just a quirk of our congregation?

In recent reading and listening to papers, I’ve noticed that sometimes the word “collocations” is used ambiguously. Authors seem to use the word in three different ways:

1. Words that occur together
2. Words that occur together frequently
3. Words that occur together in some statistically significant manner

Of course, it’s unsurprising to see a word used in different senses. It’s only in this case that I’m not terribly interested in “collocations” in the first sense listed above.

At any rate, here’s how I try to disambiguate in discussions related to Biblical Hebrew. First, I assume that most people talking about collocations in the Hebrew Bible do not mean the third sense in the list above, unless they explicitly state otherwise. It is difficult to run statistical analysis on a closed corpus as small as the Hebrew Bible.

Second, I take an example of a collocation someone is talking about that I think might be rare and see how common it is. If it turns out to be rare, I assume they are using sense one above. If not, I assume they might be using sense two above, until I might come across something else they call a collocation I think might be rare.

Perhaps this isn’t helpful to anyone, but my first experience with the word “collocation” was in research related to vocabulary learning where it is often used in sense three above. So, I sometimes end up confused.

I, too, have recently adopted the mantra “words don’t have meanings; meanings have words.”  But, I was struck recently by this passage in the preface of Night by Elie Wiesel where he discusses how there were no words appropriate for the meanings he was trying to convey concerning his experiences during the Holocaust:

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger–thirst–fear–transport–selection–fire–chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times they meant something else. Writing in my mother tongue–at that point close to extinction–I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was “it”? “It” was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned.  All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. (p. ix)

In a dramatic turn, however, I think most who read Night would testify that the effect of the words that Wiesel does find is anything but “meager.”  Among many other things, it is a book that can prod one to repentance for complaining about things that are trite.  It can embolden one to testify, though the world around is trying to convince itself that an atrocity is a hoax.  It can inspire one to look upon the plight of those who are suffering in the world around us and act in compassion.

Night also reminds me that this is something that I should keep in mind when I am reading some texts within the Bible.  I currently analyze meaning day in and day out for my work, but it is important to remember that sometimes authors who were in distress may have chosen the words they did despite the fact that the words seemed “meager, pale, lifeless.”