Introduction - 2

In the course of time, the meanings of words have changed. This is a bad thing. No, it is not a good thing, and neither is it irrelevant. For it means that when a book was written in the year 1821, some of the words in that book carried meanings which they don’t carry today. Thus we can no longer expect to fully understand the message which the author of that book intended to convey.

The older the book, the more pronounced the problem. And the bible is the oldest book on earth.

The process whereby the meaning of words change, is usually called “semantic shift.”

semantic shift

the evolution of word usage - usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. Wikipedia¹. semantic shift.

And in an article for the Poynter Institute, an American School for Journalists, Roy Peter Clark summarises:

“We know that words change all the time and over time, a process language experts describe as “semantic shift,” semantics being the field of language concerned with meaning. Even if we may not recognize it, such change in meaning is all around us, influenced by social, political, religious, economic and technological forces. Many words we use every day meant something quite different 10, 100 or 1,000 years ago.” The Poynter Institute².

The Wikipedia article lists a number of possible causes for those changes, but contrary to the Poynter Institute, it does not include the discipline of theology amongst the influential forces which cause words to change their meaning. This is odd. The German Luther Biblia, the Dutch Statenvertaling, the English King James Version; until WW1, these bibles have had more influence on shaping their respective languages than any other book or person, with the possible exceptions of Shakespeare and Goethe. So to omit religious influence in an article that describes how and why the meaning of words change over time, is highly suspect. Unless Wikipedia has an agenda to belittle the influence of religion on society.

And then there is another sneaky problem with the Wikipedia description. It describes the shift in meaning as “the evolution of word usage.” Now as you may know, in our times the term evolution has a strong positive connotation.

evolution - definition

a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage) — {Terminology dictionary}

evolution - synonyms

development, advancement, growth, rise, progress, progression, expansion, extension, unfolding… — {Oxford English Thesaurus}

The approach of Wikipedia is typical for the conceit of the zeitgeist in the 21st Century. Many people seem to think that everything in the world must be better than before, because they themselves are now in it. This inflated sense of self-admiration causes Wikipedia to even regard semantic shift as an instance of progress! The meanings of words develop to a more advanced and mature stage, they think. It’s the arrogance of the ignorant, because those of us who have read real books, from before the Internet Era, know that semantic shift has rather crippled many words.

Anyway, my reason for calling to your attention the phenomenon of semantic shift, is to explain why I regularly disagree with contemporary dictionary definitions. I am well aware that it may come across as absolutely preposterous whenever I, a native Dutch speaker, declare that the great and mighty Oxford Dictionary of English is wrong in its definition of certain words. Or when I declare that all modern bible translations have gotten the meaning of some ancient Hebrew words wrong.

Knowing about semantic shift may help you understand my certainty with respect to declaring the failures of the great institutes of linguistics. It is because words used to have well defined meanings, but over time those meanings were altered, and often deliberately. Lexicographers and bible translators are not anchors of truth which we all thought they were, but have morphed into agencies of wokeness, cancel culture and marxism.

Our world has become a sad, arid place to think in.

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