Here’s the perfect pancake receipt one more time.
Ingredients:
100g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 large heggs
200 ml milk
75 ml water
50g melted butter
Method:
Sieve
Whizz
Fry
#pisky
52 responses to “Inclusive Language – again”
-
Kelvin – that cracked me almost as much as your last tweet on the left of your blog ;-)!
-
Ryan, although you address your comment to Kelvin like I am not there. I assume you are referring to my poem, I can assure you that it does not crack me up watching you making any opinion you may have untenable.
-
No Jimmy – I think Ryan was indeed referring to my last comment, above.
-
-
Thank you Kelvin and Sorry Ryan.
-
No worries! Was indeed referring to the v.amusing coming out day tweets at the side.
I’m not sure there’s ever existed anyone, anywhere,at any time, of whom it could be said that *all* their opinions are ‘untenable’, so such rhetoric is dehumanising at best. Apropos nothing, I was moved to google the poetic stylings of the great David Brent. Who needs Auden? 😉
http://murfinsandburglars.com/2009/04/14/bad-poetry-for-tuesday-david-brent-edition/ -
Kelvin; no, I think it distracts. It simp;ly reminds us that this is how your mind works: you make connections and delight in that sort of word-play. However, to sharpen up my point. Thank you for helping me to realise that, for some, ‘family’ is not a positive word in the way in which I experience it. For my part, this willl mean that I will be more careful about its use when others might feel excluded (and therefore hurt). Mutatis mutandi can you accept that I feel offended by what seems to be merely a casual linking between family and the f word? These are sensitive areas, but sensibilities are by no means confined to those who find family a painful or unhelpful concept.
-
I am slightly nervous aboaut the alternatives to the 1982 Liturgy, not because I don’t share the inclusive sentiments expressed above (I do). I fear that, as so often in the history of the church, the steps we take to avoid one kind of mistake in the way we talk about God can lead us into another. The avoidance of pronouns as a measure to achieve inclusivity produces inelegant, strained and stilted English. How would it be if one were to use it in day-to-day speech? ‘I saw John this morning. I asked John’s how John’s health was. John said that John was over his flu, and hoped to be back at work on Monday’. This may not in itself seem to be a problem. But in fact, what very quickly happens when we adopt this idiom in addressing/expressing God, is that the very idea of a personal God begins to recede. My basic instinct is that the church’s language of pulbic prayer is properly anchored in that of the scriptures. There are dangers in departing from this. The perceived problem (rightly perceived) is perhaps better tackled by good teaching about the nature of God, than by linguistic contortions that produce stilted prayers, and possibly a less real and vivid idea of God.
-
About the family imagery – another reason to drop it in church is for the sake ones who, like me, do actually have the signifying family relationships.
There is too much pressure on day to day life with children when that life is forced to serve as some kind of example or testimony or witness to the world – or more likely one’s church friends – about the nature of God.
I think it sours love because in that kind of scheme loving children is more fundamentally a means to an end.
Previous Posts
-
Come out and carry on
Today has been designated as National Coming Out Day. There’s been so much going on recently in the media and social media about gay bishops in the Church of England. This seems to me to say it in a more elegant way than all the letters to the press, editorials, blog posts and twitter posts…
-
How twitter and facebook can save your blog rather than kill it
One of the things that anyone keeping a blog must be aware of at the moment is that things are not the same as they were. At one time you simply had to put up something even vaguely interesting and people all over the world would read and comment. Blogging was like the Wild West…
-
Dinner at the Trades House
Out last night to a lovely dinner with the Trades House of Glasgow. Glasgow is one of those cities where the Medieval Guilds of the city still exist. The various trades in the city formed themselves in to Incorportated Crafts which were ways of regulating (and monopolising) trade as the city grew. Nowadays they…
-
The Special Synod on Family Life
Something significant is going on in the Vatican this week. A series of conversations has started about how the Roman Catholic Church deals with issues that arise in family life. It is hugely significant because such conversations simply don’t happen very often. Another interesting thing is that it started off with a questionnaire that was…
Leave a Reply