Coined By God: Words and Phrases That First Appear in English Translations of the Bible [Hardcover]

Stanley Malless (Author), Jeffrey McQuain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

A word lover's delight: 150 entries, with meanings and sources, first published in English translations of the Bible.

From "appetite" to "liberty," the Bible has been one of the richest sources for introducing words and concepts into the English language. Even the names of the biblical books, from "Genesis" to "Revelation," have enlarged the English vocabulary. Not only did hundreds of words come into English when biblical translators used them, but so did dozens of now common phrases, from "blood money" to "salt of the earth." The authors cite chapter and verse and trace the words right up to today's headlines. Each entry is a window onto the often-forgotten biblical story that gave rise to the word. Arranged from A to Z, and reader-friendly regardless of faith, the book offers entries about biblical words and phrases that have moved into the general culture. Included is a brief chronology of the English translations of the Bible as well as indexes for source and translator.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From its first vernacular translations, the Bible has been a record of the development of the English language. Such indispensable words as fisherman, cucumber, liberty, puberty, crime and conscience all made their entry into the written language in its pages, while deathless feats of biblical phrasemaking like "apple of his eye" and "no man can serve two masters" still pepper speeches everywhere. Word lovers and Bible scholars alike will delight in this compendium of the Bible's bequests to the English language. Malless and McQuain, authors of Coined by Shakespeare, include 150 detailed, sprightly entries, organized alphabetically, that provide etymologies of words and phrases, a record of their appearances and variations in Bible versions from the first English translation by William Wycliffe in 1382 to the King James Version, as well as classic and contemporary examples of their usage in secular contexts.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An account of 150 locutions from genesis to salt of the earth that debuted in English translations of the Bible; from a professor of education and a researcher for the New York Times Magazine's "On Language" column, respectively.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393020452
• ISBN-13: 978-0393020458
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,407,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting tidbits, December 12, 2004

By 

A. J. Valasek (Clemmons, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coined By God: Words and Phrases That First Appear in English Translations of the Bible (Hardcover)

If you find reading dictionaries, reference books or history books fascinating, you may like this little book. It truly is interesting to me how much the English language owes to the realm of religious writing. In all fairness, interesting not fascinating, hence the rating.

The text does not read like a dictionary so it isn't too hard to comprehend and most readers will polish this off in a couple weeks even at a liesurely pace. However, I would classify this book as a reference book since that may be where you find the most use for it and not something you just sit down and read, unless you are a trivia buff of sorts.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars cute and enlightening. and contains SEX! ..., May 26, 2003

By 

Larry Mark "editor of MyJewishBooks.com" (nyc) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coined By God: Words and Phrases That First Appear in English Translations of the Bible (Hardcover)

McQuain, a former researcher for William Safire's weekly On Language column in The Sunday New York Times, with Mr. Malless, have compiled a book of words in English that first appeared and were coined for the King James English translation version of the Bible. Words like Adoption, Treasure, Appetite, Liberty, First Fruits, Novelty, Nurse, Busybody, Land of Nod, "holier-than-thou", Crime, Cucumber (cucumeres), Ivory Tower, botch, brother's keeper, sex, "coat of many colors", bundle, bloodthirsty, and Sprinkler are included. "Left wing", I had thought came from the French National Assembly. But I was wrong, it was created as a term during the translation of 1 Maccabees 9:16. "Stiff-necked" was also coined for the KJV (Act 7:51). The word "irrevocable", was coined in order to translate a sentence in Ezekiel, derived from Latin for "may not be called back again." The word was also briefly coined for the bible. A fun quick read to review and review for any lexicon irregular.