Seminary Words

Okay, I added this fellow to my links list on the right sidebar over there, but I just had to include this particular link today. It made me laugh out loud several times. He writes about how Christians like to overuse their "one seminary word."

My favorite, although it's not a theological word, is "behoove." It's somehow added to everyone's theological lexicon as soon as they return from their first day of seminary. "I think it would behoove us to clean out the refrigerator tonight." There are some words you use that are ineffective, not because they don't mean exactly what you think they do, but because I'm so distracted that you actually just used that word.

My olde worship pastor at church started using this word when we first started studying Greek together. He used it 5 times in 5 minutes, and he didn't even notice. This was before he went to seminary, though - but he was thinking about the move at the time. I think the infection was that strong - even the inclination of seminary started shoving ridiculous words in his head.

Also have you noticed that very educated people often mispronounce words (esp. historical figures, places) just to be distinctive? They aren't ignorant, it's just that they think they've earned the right to tweak our pronunciation a bit. Athanasius. Galilee. You can't fool me, guys - I know Greek and Hebrew.

My personal downfall is outdated slang. But I suppose that's annoying on a different level.