More book reviews of interest

[Jonathan Lighter]

Without commenting on the value of MacCulloch's approach: it is profoundly
(though not exclusively) influenced, at bottom, by the "etymological
fallacy."

Perhaps linguists have dismissed the etymological fallacy a little too
glibly as simple superstition.  The fact is that once you know an etymology,
it becomes inseparable from your perception of the term. Books on
poetry once urged how much richer our lives would be if we familiarized
ourselves with a word's etymology.

At any rate, if I meet any Miaphysites, I'll be extra careful not to think
of them as Nestorians.

JL


On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 9:47 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      More book reviews of interest
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Mark Kleiman comments on Diarmaid MacCulloch=92s Christianity: The First
> Th=
> ree
> Thousand Years. I wouldn't exactly call it a review, but there is a
> relevan=
> t
> comment:
>
> http://goo.gl/nr4vO
>
> MacCulloch=92s father was an East Anglian rector, and the book is marked
> by=
>  a
> > cheerful courtesy and good humor that it=92s hard not to see as the
> produ=
> ct of
> > the best sort of manse upbringing. In discussing the terminological
> > conventions he has chosen, MacCulloch writes:
> >
> >> I have tried to avoid names which are offensive to those to whom they
> ha=
> ve
> >> been applied, which means that readers may encounter unfamiliar usages,
> =
> so I
> >> speak of =93Miaphysites=94 and =93Dyophysites=94 rather than
> =93Monophys=
> ites=94 or
> >> =93Nestorians,=94 or the =93Apostolic Catholic Church=94 rather than
> =93=
> Irvingites.=94
> >> Some may sneer at this as =93political correctness.=94 When I was young
> =
> my
> >> parents were insistent on the importance of being courteous and
> respectf=
> ul
> >> of other people=92s opinions and I am saddened that those undramatic
> vir=
> tues
> >> have now been relabeled in an unfriendly spirit.
> >
> > The polemical assignment of nasty names to virtues has become a regular
> > practice: we now have =93elitism=94 to denigrate the love of excellence
> a=
> nd
> > =93permissiveness=94 for to make freedom seem threatening. Whoever
> invent=
> ed
> > =93political correctness=94 as a bad name for courtesy did a bad day=92s
> =
> work.
>
>
>
> This is actually about 2/3 of the entire post.
>
> VS-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org