BTW, the new Conservative prayer book for the High Holidays no longer uses "awesome" as the English translation of the Hebrew "norah," because the rabbis writing it decided that "awesome" sounds too slangy now and doesn't have the traditional "deserving of awe" meaning for most people any more. They're also not using "salvation" for "geula," because they say that people don't use the word salvation anymore, so they're using "help" or "deliverance" instead. I'm not sure who decided that "deliverance" is more commonly used in modern American English than "salvation," because to me, both of them seem equally prayer-language rather than speaking-language.

As a person who speaks Israeli Hebrew, I agree with the Rabbis about "awesome" (norah now only holds the meaning of "really really bad" in speaking Israeli Hebrew), but I agree with you about geula.

In the church I grew up in (which was slightly to the, um, more right-wing end of the Christian spectrum) we used to sing a hymn that started with "Our God is an awesome God". Being aged about seven at the time, I couldn't help but imagine God in shades giving Jesus a high-five while we sang this.

There was some hymm we sang that had a line about bringing "Peculiar honors for our King." Yeah, pretty much any odd word in a hymm would amuse me.

Wishing you tons of ~ma always, Drew. Here's hoping the tubes do their work of giving your innards a chance to rest and recover and HULK SMASH the infections ASAP.

I'm not sure who decided that "deliverance" is more commonly used in modern American English than "salvation," because to me, both of them seem equally prayer-language rather than speaking-language.)

not to mention that deliverance is more associated with banjos and inbreeding than salvation.

Hmm. To me, the issue with "salvation" isn't that it's uncommon, but the connotation is almost exclusively Christian (in contemporary US context, of course) -- not just help, but the specific theology. Of course, "deliverance" is pretty much the movie. They should stick to "help".

Har! Dueling x-posting banjos!

(norah now only holds the meaning of "really really bad" in speaking Israeli Hebrew

I'm thinking there aren't many girls named Norah in Israel these days.

In Israeli Hebrew, help isn't the word for geula (ezra is).

I'm thinking there aren't many girls named Norah in Israel these days.

Different spelling. Nora(h) (private name) is נורה, nora(h) (adj.) is נורא. And just to make things more confusing, נורה can also be nura, which is a light bulb or "got shot/fired at" (for singular male).

Feeling even more love for Ezra Klein. Which, frankly, I didn't think was possible as Rachel and Keith love him and he looks like a long-lost Eppes brother anyway(In my book, lovable things) But his name seems to fit his work on the Washington Post on top of everything.