A poll, random linguistics and a few requests

[erratio]

The Poll
When you sing the Australian National Anthem, how do you pronounce the word 'advance'?
A: To rhyme with 'pants'
B: Advarnce, to be assonant with the word 'path'


For myself, I have no idea. I read both pronounciations and they both sound correct to me.

Random Linguistics

I finally discovered why I've occasionally been mistaken for Canadian/British!

From the Wikipedia article on Australian English:

Cultivated Australian English has many similarities to British Received Pronunciation, and is often mistaken for it. Cultivated Australian English is now spoken by less than 10% of the population.


I find this strange though because I don't consider my word usage to be very.. cultivated, to say the least. In fact I often seem to go out of my way (without really meaning to) to use some really weird or earthy turns of phrase and pronounciation. Sometimes I think that it's my subconscious need to distance myself from the speech patterns of people who I don't like, so my mum's strange idioms are in, my high schools' South African phrases and accents are out, and in between is a healthy sprinkling of random phrases that seemed particularly apt to me when I heard/read them. Oh and growing up with a reading vocabulary far beyond your spoken can lead to some really strange pronounciations :) I'm still coming across them nowadays (who the hell uses that word anyway? Other than me)

Anyway, I guess that puts my accent mostly in General Australian English but sometimes straying into Cultivated. Woot!

The requests

1. Does anyone know where I can buy dreidels? At some point I'll probably go check Gold's near Bondi Beach but I have no idea where else one could possibly buy these. And Gold's has a reputation for being expensive, so an alternate source would be nice. Heck, any source would be nice, I don't even know if Gold's has them.

2. If I wanted to read the Christian Bible (ie. the New Testament, Gospels, etc) what version(s) would you recommend I read?

Comments

[doctorer.livejournal.com]

The second distinction is whether you want a more "literal" (textually idiomatic) or a more "modern" (contemporary idiomatic) translation. On one end, the more literal translations are more difficult to read (the older style of writing does not flow so easily) but tend to more accurately convey the desired meaning of the passage. They do, however, require the reader to be very culturally aware and willing to seek guidance when obscure text arises. The contemporary translations seek to make the bible more readable by (in some cases) adopting a style closer to narrative - this can at times be seen to compromise all but the most obvious meaning behind the text, stripping deeper relationships and interactions between various parts from the text.

I would recommend the Jerusalem Bible (famed for its excellent footnotes and cross-referencing) or the Revised Standard Version. I specifically avoid the NRSV because its only real changes were to make the language "politically correct" - this can and does, in many cases, make the language stilted and even modifies the fundamental meaning of a given passage for the sake of modern sensibilities. A token example is the preference for using "God" or "the Lord" when possible in preference to the original "He/His" etc. The New American Bible, despite its name, also has a good reputation and is from memory a slightly more literal translation.

In your case, perhaps it is better to consider getting both a more literal and a more contemporary translation - I'm not sure what you want from the bible, but if it's just a general interest the flow of the contemporary translations is hugely beneficial.

Regarding the NIV specifically - I hate the NIV. It claims scholarly superiority, but the fact remains it is nothing more than a political bible produced by proponents of a particular theology. Every passage that is even remotely contested by evangelical protestants is translated to explicitly promote the protestant theologies while "disallowing" others (such as the catholic and orthodox ones) as demonstrated above. It is totally unsuitable for anyone who is attempting to learn about Christianity in a sane way - read the text first, then interpret it (rather than mould the text to one's existing interpretation). The King James version is similarly unsuitable - it was written for political reasons (attempting to provide the newly Protestant England with a Protestant translation of the Bible to English) and is riddled with archaic and inaccurate language. The language is doctrinally stilted and prone to severe misinterpretation by modern readers - especially where stylistic practices have reversed in the interceding 400 years. For a better (and more charitable) guide to all the stuff I've said and more, see our friends again at Catholic Answers:

http://catholic.com/library/Bible_Translations_Guide.asp

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Ahh, my thanks for that

I should perhaps have mentioned in my post that I was looking for the more literal versions. It's all very well to have a nice story but when I remember back to my scripture at school there's way too much meaning packed in there for an interpretation to do it any justice

Revised standard version it shall be then!

[doctorer.livejournal.com]

The RSV is pretty good, it's one of my preferred translations. For my personal use though my favourite remains the Jerusalem. Though the translation itself is somewhat less literal, the cross-referencing and footnotes in the Jerusalem Bible convey far more meaning than transliterated Hebrew idiom ever could.