[Lexicog] Blessing, benediction in English and other languages

[billposer at ALUM.MIT.EDU]

A distinction that hasn't been mentioned, unless I missed it,
is that "blessing" can mean the act or ritual, the words uttered, or the
benefit conveyed, whereas "benediction" has only the first two
senses. Thus, you can say "Good health is a blessing" but not "Good
health is a benediction". This is true even if you're a Christian
who believes that all blessings come from God, so I think that it is
not a consequence of the restriction of "benediction" to Christianity.

Bill
--
Bill Poser, Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wjposer/ billposer at alum.mit.edu


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