{"id":34668,"date":"2022-09-10T21:38:07","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/whats-in-a-word\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T21:38:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T02:38:07","slug":"whats-in-a-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/whats-in-a-word\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a Word?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If anyone knows words, it should be the fine people at the Merriam-Webster company, who publish a variety of dictionaries. Each year, it seems, they scour the culture to search out those new words and phrases that have come into common use, and this year they’ve added more than 100 new entries to their Collegiate Dictionary<\/em> (according to a story in the July 7 Dallas Morning News<\/em>).
Among the new entries for the latest edition:
Air quotes<\/em><\/strong> is defined as “gestures made by raising and flexing the index and middle fingers of both hands, used to call attention to a spoken word or expression.” If this is an appropriate entry, then I’d suggest they also add bop you one<\/em>, which is what my dad did to “call attention” to my failure to obey promptly.
Dirty bomb<\/em><\/strong> is a “bomb designed to release radioactive material.” Those of us who have been youth ministers will also recognize the term in reference to the bags of laundry collected after a week at youth camp.
Malware<\/em><\/strong> is defined as “software designed to interfere with a computer’s normal functioning.” This would be in contrast to simpleware<\/em>, which is inexpensive software that is easy for a non-computer expert to learn and use. Oh, wait, that doesn’t exist. Never mind.
Mental health day<\/em><\/strong> is a “day that an employee takes off from work to relieve stress or renew vitality.” Pastors know this by the term Saturday<\/em>.
Subprime<\/em><\/strong> is a term we’re hearing a lot of these days, since it refers to loans with an interest rate higher than the prime rate, typically offered to low-income borrowers. Preachers also recognize the term subprime<\/em> as defining the level of interest the congregation showed in that last sermon series on tithing.
Wing nut<\/em><\/strong> is a new dictionary entry that is slang for “one who advocates extreme measures or changes.” In church life, it is also slang for former pastor<\/em>.
With all these fascinating new words entering the secular dictionaries, surely there must be a few new terms from church life worthy of consideration, such as . . .
Deaconomics<\/em><\/strong>-the economic theory by which any increase in the pastor’s salary is summarily denied.
Screenopoly<\/em><\/strong>-the trend toward use of one or more projection screens in the church to display hymn texts, sermon notes, and the kickoff when the pastor’s sermon is running long.
Tithectomy<\/em><\/strong>-the act of successfully obtaining a tithe of a new member’s income. This is in contrast to the act of successfully obtaining a tithe from a longstanding member who has never previously given, also known as wishful thinking<\/em>. <\/p>\n

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If anyone knows words, it should be the fine people at the Merriam-Webster company, who publish a variety of dictionaries. Each year, it seems, they scour the culture to search out those new words and phrases that have come into common use, and this year they’ve added more than 100 new entries to their Collegiate … Continue reading “What’s in a Word?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}