I love reading classic literature in the original spelling. A few years ago one of my best friends gave me a facsimile edition of the 1611 edition of the King James translation of the Bible. Knowing that a great deal of Tyndale’s translation ended up in the King James version, for my birthday last year I got myself a copy of the 1526 edition of William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament in the original spelling. I love them both. For me, reading through these books is a fun way to learn about how our language works as well as gain insight into the history of the Gospel.
The other day I was reading through this copy of Tyndale’s New Testament and I found the following fascinating construction in St. Mark chapter 10:
And he sayde unto them: Whosoever putteth awaye his wyfe, and maryeth another, breaketh wedlocke to herwarde.
In modern English we would generally use the phrase “toward her” or depending on our dialect, “towards her.” But here Tyndale places the -ward suffix, indicating direction, on the pronoun!
A petard is a small bomb used to blow up gates or walls of an enemy’s fortifications. William Shakespeare coined the phrase “Hoist with his own petard,” in his play Hamlet:
I’ve realized that the volume of content here on Sixteen Small Stones has been in stead decline for some time. As I’ve thought about the reasons, I’ve decided that my posts have become much too narrowly focused, and so I have been writing only when I have something to say regarding religion or politics and when I have the energy to distill my thoughts into an essay.
Originally, Sixteen Small Stones was meant to be a place for me to write about any of my many interests and starting now I am going to return to that objective. I will still be writing about politics and religion when I have something to say, but it will not be the only focus as it has been lately.
