The wizardry of "of"

Wizardry? Of "of"? What's this bloke on about this time? Well you may ask. Well, let me explain. Being a resident of the land of Oztralia (sometimes misspelt "Australia"), I talk proper English. Martha and I have just had the pleasure of seeing off some old friends who have been visiting from Texas. (It strikes me that that sentence could convey the wrong impression. The pleasure lies in the visit, not the end of the visit!) They, of course, speak a distorted version of English. (In the spirit of offering the hand of friendship I decided against using the "b.ized" word.) I mean, after all, every master of syntactical exactitude knows you don't need to put "of" after other prepositions such as "off" or "inside" or "alongside", as our friends continually did. Humpty Dumpty didn't fall "off of" the wall, he just fall off it. You don't walk "alongside of" another person, you just walk alongside him. You don't accomplish a task "inside of" 25 minutes, you do it inside 25 minutes.

I do, of course, speak tongue-in-cheek. In spite of the fact that it's given rise to some heated arguments, I'm a firm advocate of the position that the way any group of people expresses itself is ipso facto correct. Millions of people in the Deep South say "ain't" instead of "aren't". Although its use here would bring down howls of derision upon its unfortunate user, as far as I'm concerned, in that part of the world "ain't" is just hunky-dory. Let Southerners be Southerners, let Ozzies be Ozzies, and let Niles and Frasier go jump off a bridge. (I don't really mean that.) Don't get me wrong, I'm advocating neither coarseness of speech nor sloppiness of expression. All hail poesy and precision in communication. I'd love to see a return to the golden days when kids what din know nuthin' was learnt to speak proper and write proper too. But let local idioms enjoy unfettered reign, too. And more to the point, let's understand the simple fact that different people convey the same idea in different words.

The little word "of" truly works wizardry in this context, for its use in the way just described produces an equal and opposite reaction in English speakers. To most Americans, stepping "off of" the sidewalk rings true, and is as "right" as apple pie and ice cream. To me, it grates, and seems improper. This example illustrates the folly of insisting on a "literal" translation of the Bible. You have some out there

who would insist that if the ancient Israelites had spoken like an American and put an "of" where others don't, then any translation that leaves the "of" out would be condemned as "liberal" or even "unbiblical". Some evangelical Baptists contend that using any translation other than the King James Version is tantamount to betrayal of truth on the grounds that it is the most "literal" and therefore "faithful" of all English translations.

The plain truth, however, is that words are merely vehicles for expressing concepts or ideas. Some experts contend that the minimum unit of language capable of conveying a thought is a sentence, while others even argue that the minimum unit of effective communication is a paragraph. Consider this simple fact; a given idea can be faithfully rendered in any number of different ways. "Every word of God is pure" (Prov. 30:4) in the sense that the thoughts conveyed by the words are perfect and reliable as a guide to life and truth.

Different languages and even dialects within a language express a given thought or concept using, sometimes, quite different wording. The translator who seeks to be faithful to the Word of God labors to understand the idea being conveyed by the original Hebrew or Greek words and then tries to find the best combination of English words to express that idea to the widest possible audience of English speakers. To effectively convey the mind of God as revealed in Scripture sometimes requires a rather "liberal" translation. Word for word translations sometimes only serve to obscure what God was saying, rather than to reveal His mind. There can be no virtue in that approach. Take Mark Twain's quip, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read." If you tried to translate that word for word into any other language you would be met with blank stares. Is one being unfaithful to the truth to render Jesus' words "Agree with your adversary while you are in the way with him" (Matt. 5:25) as "settle out of court"? Although the wording of "settle out of court" has no similarity to Jesus' exact words, it would appear that the idea He was conveying could best be expressed that way. Such "liberal" translation can, in fact, be far more faithful than a "literal" translation that fails to adequately convey the meaning.