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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