Joy to the Word
By Randy Koch
At this time of year nearly all of
us read or hear the Christmas story, particularly
the version in the second chapter of Luke, verses
1-14. Its style, though simple, is both formal and
memorable, but it's also repetitive, plain, wordy,
and excessively passive. Despite its divine origins,
I'm inclined to suggest revision.
The original from the King James Bible reads like
this: "(1) And it came to pass in those days,
that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus,
that all the world should be taxed. (2) (And this
taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria.) (3) And all went to be taxed, every one into
his own city. (4) And Joseph also went up from Galilee,
out of the city of Nazareth, unto Judæa, unto
the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because
he was of the house and lineage of David:) (5) To
be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great
with child. (6) And so it was, that, while they were
there, the days were accomplished that she should
be delivered. (7) And she brought forth her firstborn
son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid
him in a manger; because there was no room for them
in the inn. (8) And there were in the same country
shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over
their flock by night. (9) And, lo, the angel of the
Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone
round about them: and they were sore afraid. (10)
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people. (11) For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the
Lord. (12) And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying
in a manger. (13) And suddenly there was with the
angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God,
and saying, (14) Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will toward men."
These 14 verses are made up of 12 stylistically repetitive
sentences, 11 beginning with the word "and"
(which also appears eight more times within sentences),
and nine very uniform in length, consisting of from
18 to 31 words; in addition, prepositional phrases
are heavily relied on, with 39 in 12 sentences. The
language is plain and simple, with over 77 percent
of the words consisting of one syllable and over 95
percent no more than two syllables; in fact, most
of the three- and four-syllable words are proper names
like "Cyrenius," "Nazareth," "Bethlehem,"
and "Galilee." Wordiness results from unnecessarily
long phrases. "And it came to pass in those days"
simply means "Eventually" or "Then."
Likewise, we could accurately reduce "And so
it was, that, while they were there" to "While
they were there." Long-windedness also results
from passive "there" clauses: "there
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus" might
be shortened to "a decree went out from Caesar
Augustus" or better yet "Caesar Augustus
sent out a decree"; "there was no room for
them in the inn" could be revised to "the
inn had no room for them"; "there were in
the same country shepherds abiding in the field"
could be shortened to "In the same country shepherds
abided in the field"; "And suddenly there
was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God" might be changed to the more compact
"And suddenly with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praised God."
These are the things I notice when I analyze, when
I rely on my brain but ignore what my ear and heart
tell me. I have no intentions of revising this translation
of Luke's work because the craft of his lines is often
not readily apparent; one needs to listen carefully
and examine the work closely. Take, for example, verse
4: "And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out
of the city of Nazareth, unto Judæa, unto the
city of David, which is called Bethlehem." This
could, of course, be tightened by eliminating redundancies
and prepositional phrases like this: "Joseph,
too, went from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the
city of David, in Judæa." The sentence
has been reduced from 24 words to just 15, and it
says essentially the same thing. However, the life
and rhythm have gone out of it. Missing now is the
way the long original sentence mirrored the length
and difficulty of the journey, the rise and fall of
the voice over the prepositional phrases and the proper
nouns corresponding to the rise and fall of the land,
and the distance they had to travel made concrete
for the reader by placing "Bethlehem," Mary
and Joseph's destination, at the end of this long
verse.
Luke's translator also had an excellent ear for poetic
sound and rhythm. In the opening verse I especially
like how the short a in "And," "pass,"
and "that" are all evenly spaced with three
syllables between them and how the long a in "days"
is echoed in "came" and the long e in "Caesar"
in "decree." He also creates rhythmic patterns
through the careful placement of stresses, as in this
part of verse 2, where each stressed syllable is preceded
by one and followed by two unstressed syllables: "Cy
ren i us / was gov ern or / of Syr i a." Similarly,
verse 7 contains a fine example of balance in phrasing
and sound: "she brought forth her firstborn son."
The alliteration of the clause hinges on "her,"
and the sounds that precede it are reflected in those
that follow it -- "forth" and "first,"
"brought" and "born," "she"
and "son." Notice, too, other sounds echoed,
often across "her": the last t in "brought"
and "first," the last n in "born"
and "son," the or in "forth" and
"born" (and reversed in "brought").
A similar technique is used in verse 14, part of which
-- "on earth peace, good will toward men"
-- is frequently quoted in greeting cards, though
with slightly different syntax. Here, the first half
of the sentence, "Glory to God in the highest,"
which focuses on heaven, consists of eight syllables,
lacks a verb (though "be" is implied), and
has two hard g's in prominent positions. The second
half, "on earth peace, good will toward men,"
focuses instead on earth, but also consists of eight
syllables, lacks a verb (again "be" is implied),
and includes a prominent hard g. The sentence both
begins and ends with a noun and prepositional phrase
-- "Glory to God" at the beginning and "good
will toward men" at the end. And though most
readers are unlikely to notice these subtleties, they
create a rhythm that pleases the ear and a balance
that suggests the effect that Christ had on the relationship
between God and man.
The poetic Gospel according to Luke offers excellent
examples of the many possible ways to use combinations
of words to create pleasing sounds, among them rhythm,
rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, repetition,
and parallelism. However, even without their meaning,
these and other words are often a source of pleasure,
both because of how they sound and how they feel.
On my family's farm in Minnesota we used words that
almost never find their way into my mouth anymore.
"Cluck," for example, which is what we called
a brooding hen, is a funny word, used because of the
sound a chicken makes when sitting on eggs. "Smut"
is common slang for something pornographic or indecent
but on the farm refers to the blackish fungus that
grows on corn. A clevis is a U-shaped piece of iron
with a hole in each end through which a pin or bolt
can be inserted in order to attach one thing to another,
such as a log chain to a draw bar. A "dead furrow"
(a great name for a heavy metal band) is a furrow
in a plowed field that doesn't get closed with soil.
A "jag" (which, because of television, most
people think means Judge Advocate General) refers
to a drunken condition, as in a crying jag, or it
could refer to a small wagonload of grain, as in "Pull
that jag of corn to town." Even words that were
at one time ordinary and plain now seem strange and
almost exotic, their sounds appealing to me across
the years and miles, words like "chaff,"
"sledge," "flywheel," "husk,"
"barrow," "hames," and "alfalfa."
Place names, too, seem odd and otherworldly, names
like Minnetonka, Mankato, Winona, Anoka, Chanhassen,
Koochiching, Lac Qui Parle, Owatonna, and Minneota.
And while I took those words for granted and now miss
them, I've discovered a new world of language here
in Laredo, words from Spanish, Nahuatl, and Tex-Mex,
words not always strange in meaning but exotic to
my eye and ear: caliche, calaca, Tenochtitlan, andale,
mariposa, yonke, vulcanizadora, güero, Xochitl,
esperanza, hormiguero, and even y. This place is a
treasure trove of language; I only wish I had time
to wrap my mind and tongue around all these new sounds
and words.
I find much joy in writers' thoughtful, sensitive
use of language, in both the opportunities of sound
and the dimensions of meaning. "Christmas,"
for example, comes from the Middle English "Cristemas,"
which is a compound of "Christ" and "Mass,"
"mass" from the Latin missa, which means
literally "dismissal." Originally the priest
dismissed the congregation by saying, "ite, missa
est (contio)" or "go, (the meeting) is dismissed."
Therefore, Christmas is, I suppose, the speaking of
words regarding the birth and life of Christ. Here,
again, the importance of language and more specifically
of words is pointed to, much as the Gospel of Luke
is immediately followed by John, which starts, "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God." Joy be to the Word.
(Randy Koch teaches English and directs
the Writing Center at Texas A&M International
University.)
