Jeremy Thompson

Category: Linguistics

  • Chop-chop and chopsticks

  • “Analogy” vs. “metaphor”

    In one of the SBL sessions I attended this week, one of the papers led to questions about whether it was meaningful to switch from using the word “metaphor” to using “analogy.” In other words, is there a distinction between?: The psalmist uses the metaphor ”the Lord is my rock.” The psalmist uses the analogy ”the Lord is my…

  • Hobbes on metaphor #fail

    Came across this massive fail by Hobbes to rage against metaphor in Hofstadter and Sander’s Surfaces and Essences and thought it interesting: To conclude, the light of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the…

  • That’s Deep, Deep

    Sometimes repetition of a word has an intensifying effect.  We have examples of this in English: 1. (Me to my kids sometimes): If you don’t start acting right, we’re going to have a big, big problem. 2. The pope has resigned. It’s a sad, sad day. I recently came across my favorite example of this…

  • Thinking about Psalm 19:4

    I’ve been interacting with Kris over at Old School Script for the last day or so about Psalm 19:4, particularly the particle בלי toward the end of the verse.  Here was my last comment in my part of the exchange so far: Okay. So, I realize I was probably too brief and unclear above, but I…

  • Bible Sense Lexicon on the Logos Blog

    I’ve mentioned within the last week or so on this blog that I’ve been working as a part of a team on a tool called the Bible Sense Lexicon for Logos Bible Software.  Yesterday, there was a post on the Logos Blog explaining one of the ways the tool could be used, namely getting the…

  • Elie Wiesel and When the Meanings Don’t have Words

    I, too, have recently adopted the mantra “words don’t have meanings; meanings have words.”  But, I was struck recently by this passage in the preface of Night by Elie Wiesel where he discusses how there were no words appropriate for the meanings he was trying to convey concerning his experiences during the Holocaust: I had…

  • Two new to me blogs you should follow

    I’ve come upon two new blogs this week, one from two friends I made this year at SBL, Jimmy and Jessica Parks, and one from Kris Lyle, who I knew of from my dissertation supervisor and my friend Josh Westbury, but didn’t know that he blogged.  Kris attended the same university where I did my…

  • Then the Lord was all like, “Come no closer!”

    I posted this thought on Facebook this weekend – that it was fun to think about translating vayomer as “and he was like” or “and he was all like” (for those he don’t know much Hebrew, this form is often translated “and he said” or something similar).  That popped in my head after a recent visit to…

  • Anglican Priest's Wrong Choice of Words

    Jim West has posted his latest “excoriation” of the Anglican Priest who suggested that it was okay to “shoplift” if need required.  Jim states: I’m right firstly because there is NO biblical justification for theft.  None.  Not a passage nor a theologically undergirded interpretation of any passage permits theft. And, that is true, in terms…