Painting by Gerard Dou, titled “Reading the Bible” (c. 1645)
In Bridghet’s original blogpost, Escaped Hell by the Skin of my Teeth: Semiotic Systems and Context, she examines and dissects the denotation and connotation of the idiom “by the skin of my teeth.” She focusses on the contrast between its denotation—its visceral imagery—and its connotation, which is its metaphorical meaning of a narrow escape, which is derived from the Biblical story of how Job is left with nothing after God’s divine punishment.
This was when I first realized that that phrase was from the Book of Job, as someone who attended Catholic school for a decade. Thus, I delved further and found a plethora of phrases with Biblical origins—a lot more than I expected. Here, I want to expand this textual and semiotic analysis of that one specific Biblical idiom into a broader understanding of how religion permeates into our systems, environment, and habitus.
As discussed in lecture, the human symbolic capacity is analogical: we understand things in relation to and in terms of other things. Thus, human language and thought are a foundationally metaphorical and social processes. It is of no surprise that Christianity, the world’s largest and most widespread religion would have a severe and dominant grasp on our cultural lexicon and symbology.
Really Interesting, Xelena! It’s crazy to see how extensive of a list of phrases you were able to compile. A big part of why I think language and etymology is so fascinating is because of how strong and clear a connection it has to history, even in our culture that we like to think of as being hyper-modern and beyond the past. I think your question of why people continue to use these terms despite not having ties to christianity is great because it gets at the heart of why language change happens. The current consensus among linguists is that the #1 factor driving language change is kids. Every generation, an entirely new set of people basically starts learning a language all over again, and though we like to think that we ‘teach’ language, the vast majority of words and phrases are simply picked up gradually through context. That means that we lose basically everything other than the functional purpose of those phrases. As long as a kid’s understanding does the job and is understandable to everyone else, they will go into an adulthood with an often skewed idea of what words and phrases mean exactly, and no knowledge of their origin. As that process keeps layering and layering, we’re left with this huge Frankenstein assortment of words and phrases from all over the world and all over history that we have completely forgotten, despite being ingrained into our everyday lives and communication. That’s what makes it so cool when we can peel back those layers and understand the history that’s baked into the very fabric of our day-to-day communication, like you did so well in your paper!
Super cool, Xelena! I love this deep dive into common vocabulary with Christian roots, and I definitely agree that although the quantity is surprising, the widespread use of these words can definitely be at least partially attributed to the widespread popularity and assimilation of the religion. One section I resonated with was when you refer back to Bridghet’s post, where she states that “if one is not a part of a system, they cannot make use of it. However, one does not need to know the origins of a sign or symbol, [but there] needs to be context of how it is used [within] that system.” You accurately noted that non-Christians were still able to effectively employ these phrases without having understood its Biblical contexts. This reminds me of something I saw recently, which is that the phrase “no can do” was originally created to mock Chinese immigrants’ speech patterns. I felt a sense of guilt when I learned this, worrying that I was perpetuating stereotypes of my own people or keeping a problematic phrase alive. However, after some thought, I realized these words have a completely different use in our contemporary context — it is always harmless, and those who weren’t aware of the background wouldn’t even be able to tell that the phrase had a discriminatory background. I wonder then, if you think that the use contexts of certain terms are able to change the semiotics and actual meaning of a phrase?
I grew up hearing many of these phrases without ever knowing them from the Bible, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized how deep their origins run, once I also entered Catholic high school. That realization alone says a lot about how strong yet unnoticed semiotic systems can be. It also made me think about how these Biblical phrases act almost like early “memes” because they were (and currently) used widely, changing across time, and gaining layers of connotation that don’t necessarily align with their origins. Even people who aren’t religious still inherit these linguistic structures, which says something about how culture inserts itself in us.
Hi Xelena! I really enjoyed your deep dive into Biblical idioms and how they’ve shaped everyday language. It’s fascinating to see how pervasive Christianity’s influence is in our cultural lexicon, often in ways we don’t consciously notice. I liked your point about language being analogical—understanding words in relation to other things really explains why these Biblical phrases carry such layered meaning.