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!

This usage seems very awkward to our modern ears.  We do use the -ward suffix regularly.  We say “upward,” “downward, “backward,” and “forward.”  It even sounds perfectly fine to say “She looked heavenward” or “He tumbled earthward.”

Tyndale’s placement of the suffix on the pronoun seems completely foreign to us.  However, a search through the Standard version of King James Bible turns up examples of “to us-ward” and “to youward.”

Ironically, the word “awkward” itself is a fabulous use of the suffix.  The word “awk” means “turned in the opposite direction, backhanded, left handed, sinister, wrong, perverse, singular, distinguished, or clumsy.  So “awkward” means literally “in a backwards or opposite direction,” making it all the more applicable to Tyndale’s use of this fascinating suffix.

Your assignment today is to try some more creative uses of -ward in your everyday speech.  Instead of saying “He shot the ball toward the basket,” why not try “He shot the ball basketward.”  Or even try to resurrect the awkward pronoun use?

[Assy-thingummy is an ongoing blog series about words and language. Browse past Assy-thingummy entries here.]

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.

I love words and etymology.  I often come across fascinating words and word relationships.  Today I am introducing an onging series called “Assy-thingummy.”  The name Assy-thingummy comes from the book “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C. S. Lewis:

“I’m trying to think of a limerick, “said Eustace.

“Something like this:

Some kids who played games about Narnia Got gradually balmier and balmier–”

“Well, Narnia and balmier don’t rhyme, to begin with,” said Lucy.

“It’s an assonance, “said Eustace.

“Don’t ask him what an assy-thingummy is, “said Edmund. “He’s only longing to be asked.”

So Assy-thingummy posts will be about words, word relationships, and fun word facts.  I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do!

Unlike the English version that had long been available online, these version do not include the Old or New Testaments, likely due to copyright constraints.

One great feature is the ability to switch between languages. If you are viewing a particular chapter in one language and want to switch to another, just click on the language in the upper right hand corner of the page and a little drop down list of available languages will pop up. Just select the language you want and the chapter will switch to that language.

When I was trying to learn Spanish as a missionary, I found it very helpful to read The Book of Mormon with an English copy side by side with a Spanish copy. With these new electronic versions, practicing this way is easier than ever before.

According to the LDSWebGuy blog more languages are on the way.

Excerpt:

One of the most amusing things about the movement to force immigrants to speak only English is that we have a much more serious language problem on our hands—and it’s centered in the universities.

There are whole departments where English has been effectively banned and replaced with “Theoretics,” a language designed so that the speaker can make the listener feel stupid without the speaker actually having to be smart.

Read the whole thing.