Monday, December 12, 2011

The Power of Snark


You may have noticed that, when battling the nihilists, I pull out all the stops:  Senatorial courtesy does not apply.  No apologies -- we’re in a war here.

A delectable new example of this strategy may be enjoyed in this video:


Here Dr. Massey, whom readers of this site will repeatedly have met as an expert Latinist (also a published Arabist, and a former accountant or something for the National Social Security Adminstration, if I’ve got that right), upon the occasion of the introduction of a more philologically responsible translation of the Liturgy, dissects the old liberalistical mistranslation:  and this, with a scalpel, that is very tiny, but very sharp.  He means to enlighten the faithful-- and he expertly does so -- but also to attack the debasers:  the Red Cross Knight against the mealymouths.

The performance is admirable for students of rhetoric:  From what, to the average and casual reader, was a linguistically trivial matter, by patient prying   the polemicist opens up  a gaping wound.

For a more modest and secular parallel, try this, in which a tiny scrap of corporate mumbo-jumbo  written on a Dixie cup, and which I would not even have read  had I not been cooling my heels in a dentist’s waiting-room, upon semantical analysis,  leads to an indictment of rotting capitalism, culminating in a fulminating call to arms.



For further guidance from Dr. Massey concerning liturgical translation, click here:

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