In less than fifteen words:
Semi-theoretical linguist and Shorter Catechism girl who just can’t stop writing.
In slightly more biographical terms, I live in Edinburgh, Scotland and attend a friendly congregation in a reformed, calvinistic, evangelical denomination. And in the rest of my life I’ve recently completed a phd in developmental phonology at Edinburgh University (my academic homepage is here).
Meanwhile, about the blog – after sticking with Blogger for just over a year, I moved over here with a small random selection of my old posts, tagged ‘as I said earlier’ (the rest of the blogspot archives are still extant though: ninetysixandten.blogspot.com.)
And the numbers in the title? I’ll leave you to work it out (it’s honestly not that hard!)
Nice look – soothing pastel blue. Was it hard to make the switch?
Well I’d been thinking about it for ages so it was just a matter of finding time to see if it would work. You get much more of a feeling of control here – the dashboard has loads more options than in blogspot – transferring those posts over wasn’t too tedious either so overall I’m glad i did it :)
Hi Cath,
Just dropped in for a quick visit. This looks really nice. I have heard it said that anything posted on the Internet never goes away. Do you ever wonder where they have room to store all the world’s blogs?
Keep up the excellent work.
~Jayne
P.S. I tried your nospam email address only because spammers are the reason my “real” email address has been blocked by all the major ISPs who think (wrongly so) that we are spammers. Isn’t life grand?
Out of interest, are you FP or Free Church Continuing?
FWIW I attend St. John’s.
FP. I’m intrigued that you know the difference :)
The FP are a faithful denomination. Some FC(C) preached at the church I attended in Newcastle and I knew people at Durham Presbyterian Church (EPCEW).
BTW: Out of interest, does ‘Somerville’ mean anything to you?
I think i’ve met a couple of people from Durham … but better not name names as i’m paranoid about making people google-able potentially without their consent! Are you on facebook? Somerville means nowt to me i’m afraid!
Don’t worry, I purposefully didn’t mention names ;-)
I am on facebook (Richard Sherratt [manchester])
Is your initial J then? (or do you want to add me instead, to spare me the embarrassment of guessing the wrong person :) )
Hi Cath,
I very much enjoy your thought-provoking posts. However, I feel kind of silly since I’m not able to “work out” the no’s in your site’s title. There’s a 9610 in the Quran…would that be a place to start? Thanks, Col
Not even remotely warm :)
But you could really reveal the secret! For think as I may, I do not get closer to the solution… :-(
Among the people say, God reigns! Psalm 96:10.
Which I assumed would be too obvious, but i think only one person got it spontaneously (that i know of! several got it with hints)
Ah; I thought it was (19)96+10 = 2006, but then I saw posts from earlier…
Some folks got as far as 96+10=116, Psalm 116. Others were more tortuous still.
But Ps 96:10 works best as kind of like a slogan, i think. With hindsight a more overtly gospel-oriented reference might have been better – maybe 145:8-9? Just not so catchy, and 96:10 was in my head at the time for some reason.
(The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.)
? Shocking cath, 96+10=106 surely!
Hello, I’m Catherine, and I can’t add.
That is it! I could have known! [she writes, banging her head on the table]. I thought of the Catechism, and of course also of Scripture; it could have dawned upon me that as there is only one book in the Bible that has 96 chapters that might be the one. Many thanks, Cath, for enlightening me!
I will probably get into trouble for this…
Psalm 96:10 according to the Bible translated into LOLcat:
“An tel uther kittehs he in charge, k? Urf is heer now, an is stuck, liek kitteh stuck in sofa. Ceiling Cat sez ‘Yoo iz gud kitteh’ or ‘Yoo is bad kitteh’.”
You’re officially in trouble, Mr Grant.
How about “The Message” then?
Get out the message – GOD rules!
He put the world on a firm foundation;
He treats everyone fair and square.
Although, to be honest, I like the image of a kitten stuck in a sofa muuuuch better ;-)
By comparison, the “Duffle Bag Version” (that’s what we call the 1971 British Living Bible Edition ever since I was asked in chapel to read Matthew 10:10 and only had my Pocket LBE to read from) is rather lame:
Tell the nations that Jehovah reigns!
He rules the world. His power can never be overthrown.
He will judge all nations fairly.
[Interesting that it's the Creator's power and not the world itself that is firm here.]
Well, after i struck on that text I re-encountered the end of verse 7 in Isaiah 52 – How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
=> the message of salvation consists of telling Sion that her God reigns – which is in some ways a much more reassuring message than to proclaim to the world at large that the Lord reigns. For people who aren’t reconciled to God, the message that he is reigning must bring with it at least some degree of discomfort – even though, in itself, the message that this God reigns includes somewhere bundled inside it the message that reconciliation is possible for anyone who is not yet reconciled to him, seeing that the God who reigns is the God who saves. But for those who have a personal acquaintance with the God who saves (and can rightly call him “our God”), no wonder that the announcement that this God is reigning absolutely is so joyful and welcome.
Now this too is an unpolished comment and I don’t even have the excuse of being in a rush. Strange convolutions are appearing in my syntax and I don’t quite know why :?