philology

How My Grammar Nazi Mom Taught Me to Think

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I grew up with a grammar Nazi. I called her mommy. In my household, a day would not go by without phrases like, “I don’t know, ‘can’ you?” “You mean, ‘My friend and I,” and “Did you mean ‘was’ or ‘were’? How many ‘was’ there?” ringing through the house. You might’ve also noticed that a certain condescending sarcasm accompanied most of the grammatical corrections that came my way. My regular readers now understand where I’ve gotten all of my style from. (<Is that a preposition at the end of that sentence?!?!?) These daily corrections were, at the time, some of … [Read more]

Why I Stopped Saying “I’m Proud of You”

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  I’m pretty picky about the words I use. I try to speak clearly and concisely, and choose my words precisely. There have been plenty of posts from me before talking about this sort of thing… from “His Name’s Not Lucifer” to “People Have Sex, Words Have Gender” to “What Does it Mean to BE Gay?” to “Yes You Are Black” to “The Dreaded A-Word” to “You’re Just Another Klansman” to “When I Criticize the Church” to “C.S. Lewis Was Wrong” to… it could go on. Yes. I talk a lot about how we use words. I think it’s important. … [Read more]

Yes You Are Black

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You may have seen a video that’s been floating around Facebook for a few years. It starts out with the tantalizing phrase “I am not black.” Here’s a link to the video on YouTube , and here’s a link to the artist’s (Prince EA) webpage . It’s a compelling little video, definitely worth watching, but with both eyes open! It is a huge mix of great and horrible. There is truth in it, and there are massive and dangerous lies in it. I figured as an exercise for myself, as well as for instruction, I would deconstruct this video and … [Read more]

The Dreaded “A-Word”

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It was asked of me recently, “Is the purpose of your blog to start arguments or conversations?” I said arguments. Let me explain why. What Arguments Actually Are I think arguments have a bad rap nowadays, and it’s because the word has been misused to mean “nasty screaming matches that are completely illogical where no coherent point is being made.” That’s not an argument. That’s a fight. An argument can, however, have a range of legitimate definitions. Here are two of them: An argument is a series of statements intended to build a case and make a point about reality. … [Read more]

Christians Don’t End Up in Heaven

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  I said off-hand in a different blog post that Christians weren’t going to heaven, and I got some lip about it. But before I start explaining myself, let me narrow the audience for you. This post is directed at Christians. The “yous” in this post are “readers who have believed the gospel that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ of God, and by believing, have life in His name.” Okay, lets get back to the point. Christians don’t end up in heaven. “Of course we’re going to heaven!” you say. “That’s the gospel, Stephen! We’re going to go to … [Read more]