Matt and Nancy Heerema

Semantics

Probably one of my more annoying characteristics is that I am a stickler about semantics. I insist that on Sunday morning we use the word “music” rather than the word “worship”; stating that we cannot determine whether or not people are going to worship until after the fact. I insist on saying “church BUILDING” rather than just “church” when referring to the building on the corner of Eisenhower and Bloomington. These are just a few examples.

I am of the opinion the semantics are extremely important. Especially in our day of relativist thought. There are two levels (that I can think of right now) on which they are very important.

Interpersonal communication It is imperative that we share common definitions for words, else we run the risk of communicating a completely wrong idea. This is sort of an obvious statement, the next idea is perhaps a bit more complex and difficult to explain.

Personal thought We need to make sure that we concieve of the correct meaning of a word as we think of it. As an example, you may use the words “worship and “music” interchangably, thinking to yourself “well self, I know what I’m talking about…”. I think that you are treading on dangerous ground here. Using worship and music interchangably in your personal vocabulary, you run the risk of eventually equating the meanings of the two words, which are entirely different things.

I guess this is an unfinished though, but one that is on my mind quite a bit. Maybe you can call me the “Semantics Nazi”. When you are struggling with a thought, maybe a good place to start is “well, what do I mean when I say…” that may help to shed a little light on the subject.

Challenge your preconceptions every now and then :)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2004 at 2:08 pmand is filed under Matt's External Brain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Semantics”

1. Kirsten said on: March 4th, 2004 at 8:09 pm

   I agree with you Matt, at least when it comes to words that should have some spiritual significance like “church” and “worship” (I’ve been working hard on using those the right way in my communication with the Rock.”

   Words like these that are wrapped up in the Christian faith have more of a fixed meaning, without which our faith would be adrift to a certain extent…

   With language in general though…I think it is wise to not be so much of a stickler. Human language is dynamic by nature, and if it weren’t for the willingness of cultures to adopt new words and new ways of using old words, our language (and most other languages for that matter) would be dull indeed.