Category Archives: What was I thinking??

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Learn from the animals: go to the ant…

Those who were translating the Bible with John Wycliffe used two words for “ant” in their translation of Proverbs 6:6. Why did they do this?

This is how the original Wycliffe Bible reads:

O! thou slowe man, go to the amte, either pissemyre, and biholde thou hise weies, and lerne thou wisdom. (Proverbs 6:6)

Quick answer:

  1. This is evidence that Middle English had dialects, and
  2. we may be talking about two types of ants.

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Surprised by a sailing term in Proverbs 1:5

I knew that I was going to be awestruck from time to time, as I began translating Wycliffe’s Bible into Modern English. And discovering a sailing term where most Bible translations don’t have it… was amazing.

sailboat by mschwander on pixabay: sailing on the ocean

I had just figuratively walked through the door of translating Proverbs… and as an art lover examining an obscure painting in the Louvre in Paris, I stood there, staring at the painting before me.

I couldn’t quite figure out what the man of understanding was grasping tightly in his hands.

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