Pre-Refusing
Posted on:: November 21st, 2003
I’ve was asked yesterday to pre-register for an event because of security concerns. (Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of England is speaking.) I’m refusing. Oh, I’m happy to register. But I draw the line at pre-registering unless I’m registering before the registration process begins.
I’m confused …
So, you’re saying that you’ll gladly let them know ahead of time if it means you get a discount, but you won’t pre-register as a security precaution?
It’s sounds as though you’re already pre-registering — unless you plan not to go, I suppose.
Joe, I was happy to REGISTER as a security precaution, but the PRE was a pointless, meaningless, redundant prefix. That’s all I meant.
I registered, I went, and it was pretty good, if you go in for that type of Jewish boosterism. The Rabbi’s main point was that Judaism is a response to God that is always concerned with giving and creating and is never merely obedient. In fact, he pointed out that even though there are 613 commandments, there’s no Hebrew word for “obey.” The word that’s used is sh’ma which means hear, heed, interiorize, hearken, respond. In fact, the modern Israeli Army had to make up a word for “obey” to correspond to what you do when an officer gives you a command.
He also told some good jokes, none of which I remember.
“…even though there are 613 commandments, there’s no Hebrew word for “obey.” The word that’s used is sh’ma which means hear, heed, interiorize, hearken, respond. In fact, the modern Israeli Army had to make up a word for “obey” to correspond to what you do when an officer gives you a command.”
Why neologize such a word at all? Why not, either use the foreign equivalent of the concept–like Europeans say “Stop (sounds like, “Stopp”),” or, stay within the historical consciousness of the original language? Did modern warfare require submission to this practice?
We fine Italians say, “Ciao.” Do we really know if we, or someone, are coming or going? I’d say, in practice, yes, but metapractically, no. On the other hand, if we reduce structuralism to computation, it’s a done deal.
Pietro, the Israelis actually took an obscure Hebrew word and stretched or twisted its meaning. I don’t speak Hebrew and don’t know what word they took.
I appreciate not knowing a word, but to “stretch and twist” one–by God! Are meanings even little blocks of phonemes, or even semes, in the first place at all, to be teased and tested, tried and trilled, or is the symbolic nature of speech a generous multi-faceted Mandelbroit set, having jurisdiction over a cloud of order? A poet might have a license to dig beneath a word, or even to deploy one akimbo, but no one should ever maul one. That is the first law of poetry!
PS: And, thank you–for not making us pre-register for this BLOG, before we pre-view our post-views!
Ok, so you – who neologizes his own last name – is of the opinion that both creating a new word and redefining an existing one are acts of linguistic/poetic desecration. That leaves, let’s see, no choices.
Tough.
Oh, so many words, so little…I do not know what a nomothete does in private, or how he-she does it. I, myself, only understand words that link my thoughts to true ideas. I wish I had more to contribute here, but I am approaching a fit of abstraction right now…
My favorite phrase of this type is airline-specific: pre-boarding.