Shoddy Biblical Hebrew

Saturday, May 18th, 2013 11:06 pm
lethargic_man: (linguistics geekery)
[personal profile] lethargic_man

It always narks me when I hear (for example) people talking about their time on Shnat. Shnat (שְׁנַת) is in the construct form; it means "year of". Year of what? Either provide the following word, or just say שָׁנָה "year".

I'm doubly narked now that I've discovered an example of this sort of language abuse in the Bible:

Psalms 16:2–3 תהילים טז ב–ג
You have said to the Lord, you are my Lord: my goodness extends not to you, but to the holy ones that are on the earth, and to the mighty of, in whom is all my delight. אָמַרְתְּ לַה׳ אֲדֹנָי אָתָּה טוֹבָתִי בַּל־עָלֶיךָ׃ לִקְדוֹשִׁים אֲשֶׁר־בָּאָרֶץ הֵמָּה וְאַדִּירֵי כָּל־חֶפְצִי־בָם׃

What kind of shoddy Hebrew is this? And how the hell did it get into the Bible? Where was King David's copyeditor at the time? Can we decanonise this, please, until it's fixed?

(Actually, I can think of plenty equivalents in English, adjectives whose accompanying noun has been dropped, for example <racks brain> "commercial", short for "commercial break"; it's just that there I'm used to it and it doesn't irk me.)

Date: 2013-05-19 09:33 pm (UTC)
hatam_soferet: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hatam_soferet
Shnat what? What are they referring to?

My peeve is "sifrey", which I run into rather a lot.

Date: 2013-05-20 04:14 pm (UTC)
hatam_soferet: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hatam_soferet

How odd.

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Lethargic Man (anag.)

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