the word

I know, I know. Me and my Hebrew words. What can I say? I love them. I love, love, love them. I can’t believe I let my Hebrew lapse so badly. (Well, I can. It’s called grad school and children and jobs. But still. Such a tragedy.) Anyway, I actually…

As it’s near Passover, this installation of The Word is a Hebrew word that is also a prayer and a song. Dayenu is a combination of “enough” and “to us” and is most often translated “it would have been enough.” It hails from the 9th century Haggadah, and it has…

Friends, I’m going to share one of my favorite words with you today. And yes, I learned about it from Moltmann. The word is perichoresis. You pronounce it perry-ko-ray-sis. (When Moltmann says it, he sort of drags out and softens the last two syllables, so it sounds like “perry-ko-reeeeyzzzsssis.”) Perichoresis…

Well. I just read the Newsweek article everybody’s apparently talking about. It sounds like a lot of people have been thinking of translation and literary theory these days, even when they’re not listening to Taylor Swift songs. I have many thoughts about the article, but since it’s Wednesday, I thought…

Yes, I chose a well-known word this time around. Why? Because even normal words are awesome, and because many of them have great stories attached. So, in light of Advent (see what I did there), this week’s Word is votive. We know votives as the word we use for small…