THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH (Part 4)
This chapter is entitled The King James Bible or let there be light reading. As there are some idioms and unknown words, you'd better read the transcript as you watch the video. Anyway remember to look up any words you don't understand in the dictionary and write them down to be able to revise them later.
Transcript:
In 16011 the ‘powers that be’ turned the world upside down with a labour of love, a new translation of the Bible. A team of scribes to the ‘wisdom of Solomon’ went the extra mile to make the King James translation ‘all things to all men’. Whether from their ‘heart’s desire’ to ‘fight the good fight’ or just for the ‘filthy lucre’.
This sexy, new Bible ‘went from strength to strength’, ‘getting to the root of the matter’ in a language even the ‘salt of the earth’ could understand. ‘The writing wasn’t on the wall’, it was in handy little books with ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers reading it in every church. Its words and phrases ‘took root’ ‘to the ends of the earth’, or at least to the end of Britain.
The King James Bible is the book that taught us that a ‘leopard can’t change its spots’, that ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, that ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is harder to spot than you would imagine, and how annoying it is ‘to have a fly in your ointment’.
In fact, just as Jonathan begat Merit-Ball and Merit Baal begat Micah, the King James Bible begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. Amen.
In 16011 the ‘powers that be’ turned the world upside down with a labour of love, a new translation of the Bible. A team of scribes to the ‘wisdom of Solomon’ went the extra mile to make the King James translation ‘all things to all men’. Whether from their ‘heart’s desire’ to ‘fight the good fight’ or just for the ‘filthy lucre’.
This sexy, new Bible ‘went from strength to strength’, ‘getting to the root of the matter’ in a language even the ‘salt of the earth’ could understand. ‘The writing wasn’t on the wall’, it was in handy little books with ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers reading it in every church. Its words and phrases ‘took root’ ‘to the ends of the earth’, or at least to the end of Britain.
The King James Bible is the book that taught us that a ‘leopard can’t change its spots’, that ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, that ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is harder to spot than you would imagine, and how annoying it is ‘to have a fly in your ointment’.
In fact, just as Jonathan begat Merit-Ball and Merit Baal begat Micah, the King James Bible begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. Amen.
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