Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.