Still the language of Shakespeare?

 

I read a newspaper article the other week that lamented the standard of English now coming out of the European Commission in Brussels.

It's hardly surprising.  English is still the official language of The Commission, yet since we’ve left very few within its corridors speak it as their mother tongue.  This means official minutes list all those who assisted rather than attended a meeting, because that’s the French way of saying it.  And you don’t talk about current but actual legislation, because that’s the Spanish way of saying it. 

The newspaper said: The British staffers used to protect it, to point out gently that this or that construction might sound fine in French or Spanish, but it wouldn’t do in the language of Shakespeare.  But those days are over!

We can all use the same words yet give them different meanings.

I was dumbfounded when I first realised that members of the younger generation were now using the word wicked to mean that something or someone was good!  To me, and I know I’m sounding like Victor Meldrew here, that’s simply absurd!  But there you are, it’s OK now to say a car or a coat looks wicked and mean it as a compliment.

That said, I do realise that sometimes when someone is either confusing, or dare I say it, boring me during a conversation, I’ll often try to wrap it up by saying that’s interesting when, of course, I mean the exact opposite.

When Peter called Jesus The Christ, he was the first of Jesus’ disciples to use that term.  Yet rather than being congratulated by Jesus he was pulled up by him and challenged to think through if he really understood the sort of Christ he had come to be; a suffering servant rather than a political liberator.

We all use words on different levels, perhaps even playing games with them at times.  No wonder the bible calls for integrity of speech urging us to let our Yes mean Yes and our No mean No.

We are in the season of Epiphany, thinking about how God reveals himself to us, just as he revealed Jesus to the Wise Men by a guiding star.  And we are told he showed us himself in a way we can understand as The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. 

 

The message and life of Jesus is the language of our faith, and it can be understood in any tongue.