What worries me is that I understood what he said...

I cannot remember where I first read this very apt item: "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant." How very true that is, and frequently. People often finish others' sentences (convinced that the person to whom they didn't listen said this or that); assume what another must be thinking or feeling, and mentally 'finish the sentence'; pick up on key words and respond as if they were some online FAQ.

Yet there are other times when I am quite amused because, for all that I think murdering the English language should be all but a capital offence, I know what someone did say... and worry only because I do know what they meant. (Please bear with me - I just took a shot at the language, albeit not death-dealing, by using the 'quasi singular,' but I'm so tired of having to write "he or she" all the time that it's more restful.)

I'm smiling in remembrance of such conversations as those I shall whimsically recall here (all of which are perfectly true.) For example, John, one of my old friends, sometimes had others comment that his parents were quite 'on the September side' to have sons who at the time were still under 30. John's mother had been married young, but was thought to be sterile, and it was ten years before she conceived a child - then, surprisingly enough, her second son was born only a year after the first. Once, when someone asked John if his parents had married late, he said they actually had been married for years when the firstborn (his brother Ray) arrived. As John put it, "They didn't think my mother could have children - and, after she had Ray, they were sure."

Now, this, taken literally, makes about as much sense as the much-quoted Yogi Berra's saying "it's not over till it's over," or "that restaurant is so crowded that nobody goes there any more." But, admit it, you know what John meant as well! (One Christmas Eve, when John was going to his parents' house for dinner, my sister accompanied him. His parents were feeling a loss, because their dog had died only a week earlier. John told me, with great sincerity, "I'm so glad your sister is coming - my mother and father miss the dog terribly." Whether a plate of dog biscuits was presented to her when she arrived I never did ask.)

Here's another gem - again from an actual conversation:
"Andy, is Tony J. dead?"
"No."
"You know why I'm asking - I saw him the other day."

That I perfectly understood that one probably means I'm even worse off than I thought.

Given the nature of the person, I naturally have to include a liturgical example. I know how to play a guitar, so I often had the penance (then, I'm sure, supposed to be a privilege) or performing at 'folk Masses' during the 1970s. Remember the favourite "Hear, O Lord"? The first verse was "Every night before I sleep I pray my soul to take. Or else I pray that loneliness is gone when I awake." Many people were quite moved by the lyrics, and indeed "Hear, O Lord" was a very popular request. Yet, were one to take a second (or even hard first) glance at the lyrics, it does seem strange that anyone would be praying to die tonight, and see this as preferable to being lonely tomorrow.

I rant about busybodies on the Internet often enough, so I'll just caution those in truly pastoral roles to be very careful about 'filling in the blanks' thinking they know what people mean or should mean - much less picking up on 'key words' and making up the rest. But I had a very true reflection which has its tragic-comic elements.

Certainly, many fields (for example, medicine, law, or other sciences) have very specific terminology which has a totally different meaning in the vernacular. The theological realm is no exception! (I read an Internet thread, on a theology forum, about 'nominalism,' and jumped in, thinking someone was just about to refute William of Ockham. I had to read half a thread before I realised that no participant up to that point had any idea of what nominalism is. The original post on the thread was about people who are churchgoers but not otherwise avid Christians, so they are purely 'nominalists.') It is hard to find a balance between necessary precision and misunderstanding.

I'm thinking of Walter Hilton for a moment. (Well, why not? He had some excellent ideas - and it's highly unlikely that anyone else is thinking about him at the moment - but you can find some information about him in the link in the title if you wish.) He not only had to deal with confusion in English terms which have a different meaning in the vernacular than academically, but was the first to write a book about theology in English. One might assume that it would be simpler to write in his own native tongue than in Latin (though a civil and canon lawyer would have used Latin constantly), but it actually presented significant difficulties. There are many theological terms in Latin (or Greek - in fact, the latter even more so... ask anyone who was dealing with Athanasius or the crises that can come from an iota) which have a very precise meaning. The English equivalent word may differ, in nuance if not in specific meaning, and there often is no precise equivalent at all.

I'm not suggesting no one realises this. The trouble is that too many of those who do, rather than explaining a term, 'dumb down' what they are saying as if the hearers were incapable of understanding. And those who have true gifts for explaining are often discouraged... because those who just like to hear themselves talk will interrupt, say, a talk on Pope Benedict's brilliant "Eschatology" with a question about how one will recognise the end times...