I didn't see my personal favorite on the list - suchlike ones.
"ones"
by A Paduan 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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seattleniceguy
Leolaia
I have to disagree with you on the phrase "one of Jehovah's Witnesses" necessarily reflecting a hive mentality, even though I do think there are many evidences for such a mentality. The problem is that "I'm a Jehovah's Witness is simply not correct English. When I was a Witness, I used to think that of all denominational names, "Jehovah's Witnesses" was quite an awkward one because of the difficulty of denoting a single member.
The only grammatically acceptable possibilities besides "one of JWs" are even more unwieldy:
- I'm a member of the group known as Jehovah's Witnesses. (Actually, similar phraseology to this is used in Japan.)
- My religion is that of Jehovah's Witnesses. (Utterly robotic.)
- I'm Jehovah's Witness. (Seems to indicate that there is only one.)Using an apostrophe in a denominational name was definitely a questionable move at best. I wonder if it was calculated to be strange, like so much of their doctrine, or it just worked out that way.
SNG
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Leolaia
If "Jehovah's Witness" becomes a fixed phrase so that the name just becomes part of the expression, I think it no longer sounds awkward. I think this is what has happened to "Jehovah's Witness" -- in that it started out as a "name" that is meant to be interpreted literally (i.e. "witnesses" as an object that possessed by the proper noun "Jehovah") and then it has gone on to become a fixed idiom or expression. Think of similar examples of motorcycle gang names from the 60's:
John's now a Hell's Angel. Would you believe that Steve is now a Satan's Slave?
versus
John's now one of [the] Hell's Angels. Would you believe that Steve is now one of Satan's Slaves?
I personally never thought that saying "I'm a Jehovah's Witness" sounded ungrammatical because it was a fixed name. But saying "I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses" always sounded a little stiff or awkward. There is some tension tho with the possessive 's....and that is possibly a reason why ppl shorten "Jehovah's Witness" to "Jehovah Witness". Think of the case of Cosby's Kids (I'm a Cosby's Kid), maybe that sounds better as "Cosby Kid". I suspect there might be a similar motivation behind "Jehovah Witness", making "Jehovah" into more of an adjectival noun (like "prosecution witness") than a possessor.
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Room 215
Leo, I suspect that the reason ``Jehovah witness" persists to the present is more attributable to the ``tin ears" of the dubs; than any grammatical reason. ``One of Jehovah's Witness" is the clear preference of the higher ups. One never sees the former phrase, nor that of ``a Jehovah's Witness" in their literature, for example.
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seattleniceguy
Hey Leo,
Great points. Your Hell's Angels example is very good, and you're right - it does sound natural.
Your example, "Would you believe Steve is now one of Satan's Slaves?" brought home how dramatic the difference in meaning becomes between making the phrase read literally, and making it become a simple label for a group. For me,
...one of Satan's Slaves...
carries a profoundly different meaning than
...a Satan's Slave...
the latter of which is clearly just the name of a group, whereas the former seems to make a statement about the nature of the person himself. Perhaps that's why as a Witness, I prefered the former construction. I was not merely a Group-Name Member - I was one of the Group-Name's Officers.
SNG
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Narkissos
I don't know if I catch the nuance correctly as English is not my mother tongue, but in "a Jehovah's Witness" or "a Hell's Angel" I understand the compound works with a global or exocentrical meaning, as a group name, and the components ("Jehovah", "Witness", "Hell", "Angel") lose their specific, endocentrical meaning.
With "one of Jehovah's Witnesses" or "one of Hell's Angels" the components are brought back to the center of the semantic stage. They are, in effect, an implicit confession of faith each time they are uttered (somewhat like "the Truth").
An ex-JW would rather say "I'm not a Jehovah's Witness anymore". If he says "I'm not one of Jehovah's Witnesses anymore" he admits to a certain guilt of "apostasy" to something still valid in his mind (like in "I'm not in the Truth anymore"). So I guess it is part of the subtle, permanent indoctrination of the movement.
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seattleniceguy
An ex-JW would rather say "I'm not a Jehovah's Witness anymore". If he says "I'm not one of Jehovah's Witnesses anymore" he admits to a certain guilt of "apostasy" to something still valid in his mind (like in "I'm not in the Truth anymore"). So I guess it is part of the subtle, permanent indoctrination of the movement.
Fascinating point, Narkissos! Looking back, I don't think I have ever used the phrase, "I'm not one of Jehovah's Witnesses anymore." It would be like saying, "I'm not one of Jehovah's people anymore," which conveys the idea that there is a Jehovah and that he has people, both of which concepts are false as far as I am concerned.
Going back to the original discussion of the Witness use of the word "ones," I think that it is part of a calculated move to create a culture that is linguistically separate from the rest of the world. By creating this artificial division, Witnesses can easily tell when they are in the presence of other Witnesses, and it provides a reassuring sense of unity.
SNG