A couple of bloggers with an interest in language have asked about the the origin and meaning of the word “makwerekwere”. It is a slang word for foreigners, and especially illegal immigrants, which I used in a post about the anti-immigrant violence that has been taking place over the last couple of months. Both Languagehat [...]
There has been some discussion on the alt.usage.english newsgroup about the proper name for this kitchen implement.
I call it an “egg lifter”, but I haven’t always called it that, and don’t remember what I used to call it before.
I checked with my wife, and she said she also calls it an “egg lifter”, but [...]
“Cult” is one of the most frequently misused words in English. I get tired of hearing people say that this or that religious group is a “cult”. Used in that way, the word “cult” is almost meaningless. All it means is that the speaker disagrees with the beliefs or dislikes the activities of the [...]
Academic theologians, like most specialists, tend to develop jargon that is difficult for other people to understand. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I was in the thick of it at the Unisa theological faculty, but I was also working in the Editorial Department, where we tried to make academic texts understandable to [...]
Monte Asbury has some very good comments on his blog about the way language is understood in different cultures.
clipped from www.commondreams.org
“Islamic” has to do with the religion founded by the prophet Mohammed. We speak of Islamic ethics or Islamic art, as things that derive from the religion. “Muslim,” on the contrary, describes the believer. [...]
I’ve remarked a few times on the tendency to use the word “missional” where a few years ago “missionary” would probably have been used, but, as Tall Skinny Kiwi notes, the use of “missional” is itself quite old.
I found a reference to the word ‘missional’ back in 1814. I had given a later date in [...]
Hippocracy continues to grow in the blogosphere, but the good news is that it still has little authority.
Click here for more information about hippocracy and other eggcorns.
On Daylight: a conversation about all things bright (hey, doesn’t he know that the atheists have copyrighted “bright” 
Stephen writes about the web-rating site that regards “missionary” or “missionaries” as dirty words.
I noted the same phenomenon on my LiveJournal, where it said:
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
* missionary (2x)
* [...]
There’a new word going around, and I’m wondering what it means. It’s “squeezel” or “squeeza”, or at least sounds something like that.
Can someone who actually uses the word tell me what they mean by it.
The first time I heard it was about 3 years ago, when a woman was mugged crossing a railway line near [...]
The Americanisation of South African English.
When I look at the latest posts from South African bloggers on Amatomu I see an increasing use of American terms like “asshole”. When used by South Africans it translates into Afrikaans as “eselgat”, and then back into American as “burro burrow”.
I’ve heard radio panel discussions where one person [...]
 | Mary Christine Eriks… on Salvation and atonement |
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| Steve on Salvation and atonement |
 | DDD on Salvation and atonement |
 | 50 Ways to Define … on Missional |
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