variegated expatiations

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times discussing the possible impact language has on perception. These ideas clearly have some relevance to the translation and understanding of biblical texts, but there is also some danger in proposing speculative interpretations based on the perceived significance of distinctive characteristics of Hebrew.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time dubious appeals to ancient Hebrew thought have been used to justify idiosyncratic interpretations.

Another Sutherland to Surf fun run took place on the 25th July. The weather was more pleasant than last year, but my preparation was not as good. Nonetheless I cut about half a minute off my overall time, so in the circumstances I was quite pleased.

The results this year were not separated into runners and walkers, so the analysis is not quite as meaningful. You can, however, see the two groups appearing in the finishing time graph below — the first peak represents the influx of runners finishing and the second, later peak the walkers.

I just felt compelled to make some pedantic observations.

most movies are 3D
All the old movies, including black and white ones, were 3D. On the other hand, movies in which you are required to wear special spectacles are 4D, not 3D. They record three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. The “old” movies displayed in two spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, hence they were 3D.

“Smart” quotes and the single apostrophe problem:
Apostrophes are used to abbreviate. Apostrophes, when not written as small vertical marks, should appear with the concave side to the left, no matter whether they are at the beginning of a word or at the end. Unfortunately, programs like Microsoft Word, when they implement what they call “smart quotes” exhibit their utter failure at being smart when it comes to the use of apostrophes. Consequently we all-too-often will see abbreviations as follows:

‘10 for 2010

Of course it should be:

’10 for 2010

This mistake happens just about everywhere. Take a stand!

One of the hallmarks of recent (and perhaps not-so-recent) expressions of the doctrine of Scripture has been the claim that the autographs were inerrant. There are, however, problems with this assertion.
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