A STRANGE TONGUE !
What do you mean when you use the words “ let,” “ bless,” and “ before ”? Professor Ovid R/ Sellers,_ of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Chicago, put that rhetorical question to the Linguistic Society of America, at its fourteenth annual meeting. “Let” may mean “allow,” or it may mean “ prevent ” or “ hinder,” as a let ball in tennis, he said. “ Bless ”■ may mean curse. “ Cleave ” may mean split apart, or it may mean adhere. “ Before ” in “ before the war ” refers to the past, and in “a golden age is before us ’’ implies the future. Other opposites: To stone a man and stone a cherry; to seed a field and seed a raisin; to fish a garden (spread fish fertiliser) and fish a pond. No wonder, said Professor Sellers, that lawyers wrangle over the meaning of words in wills and why every student of the Constitution seems to interpret it differently.
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Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 3
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151A STRANGE TONGUE ! Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 3
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