Song Grammar

RunningMan

I have a running joke with my son (age 14) regarding
the grammer that appears in our Kingdom Songs. You
know, all the usage of e'er, n'er, pray'r, pow'r, etc.
Just imagine what it would be like if people talked like
that in real life.

Well, at our DC a couple of weeks ago, we encountered
the song "Forward you Witnesses", that contains the line
"Satan against them has vaunted". Neither of us knew
what it meant, so I looked it up today. It means "boasted".

Is that gramatically correct? How can you boast against
someone? I think somebody had a little trouble finding a
rhyme for "undaunted".

Englishman

Is that gramatically correct? How can you boast against
someone? I think somebody had a little trouble finding a
rhyme for "undaunted".

You think thats difficult? Try writing a limerick beginning:

"There was once a king called William of Orange,
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------!"

Englishman.

..... fanaticism masquerading beneath a cloak of reasoned logic.

Moxy

where else this inverted grammar do you find? placing before the verb the object? it sounds to the human ear so strange. yet in the songbook a song without it you will not find. of yoda or confucious it does me remind.

mox

Stephanus

This grammar is not uncommon, though not all-pervading, in the older hymns Christendom. Like everything else the Tower has stolen from Christendom, they've pushed the format to breaking point. My feeling is that the writers of those ('Tower) songs were very few, lacking imagination and sticking strictly to a rigid formula, trying to work as much doctrine into the songs as possible, rather than just songs of praise to God. Contrast Christendom, which has a vast repertoir of songs built up over hundreds of years, in many styles, by thousands of individuals.

Seeker

There was once a king called William of Orange
whose attempts to rhyme made others unhinged
Seeker tried it one day
in a casual way
and only succeeded in getting quite singed.