abolish formality, it is amusing that in English, and even more so in Portuguese, the words have come to be used among the Saints even more formally than the simple given name used alone. A nonmember (!) would take the word mnsecrate to mean "making (something) sacred," like consecrating a churchyard. We use dedicate for that Orson Scott Card purpose, and consecrate has come to replace donate when one is giving long history in the Christian something to the Lord, especially world-but Mormons are the only something great and difficult to part Saintspeak group that almost completely restricts with. Giving money to the Church or its meaning to the sacrament of the to BYU is still donating, however. Lord's Supper. Administer is another Mission and temple are both ripe "Alma's getting set apart right after example: "I asked the elders to come grounds for new meaningsand new sacrament meeting, which starts at administer to me." The phrase usages. Most churches send three-that's three-fifteen, Mormon "administer to" has become so missionaries out to the mission Standard Time. Will you be at the ubiquitous that it is rapidly replacing field-but only M~~~~~ ugo on a fireside?' the simple word administer in the mission" or "get a mission call." And If you understood that, you must be a phrase "administer the sacrament," our temple-centered society has given Mormon. giving us the absurdity "administer to ,is, to a distinction between going to the sacrament." When new converts come into the the temple and going through the Church, they face a greater challenge The fact that the priesthood is held by temple. If you ask someone if he has than all the new callings and all the most Mormon men has given rise to gone through the temple, you are new commandments put such usags as "the priesthood just asking whether he has ever received together-learning Saintspeak, the didn't show up at the Welfare his own endowment. If you ask him if language of Mormon society. Although farm"-meaning all the men in the he has gone to the temple, you take Saintspeak is based on English, the ward collectively. Calling, to most his own endowment for granted, and new vocabulary and the strange Christians, would refer to a lifetime are merely asking if he has gone to a usages of old words can be completely vocation or a conversion experience, normal session. However, as soon as baffling. while to the Saints it is simply the we know whose endowments we are latest in a flood of Church proxying for, we say we are going Mormon contributions to the English assignmen&. through the temple for him, giving the language came early. H. L. Mencken, strong phrasing again. Temple marriage in The American Language, credits early And what about Saint and gentile? It's is sought after by Mormons, but Saints on the frontier with the long been a standing joke that Salt unintelligble to non-Mormons, while invention of such coarse expressions as Lake City is the only place in the some related temple words are even "by hell" and "hellion." Apparently, world where a Jew is a gentile. But more baffling, like sealing. The general Mencken reasons, the Saints figured gentile is passing out of common use, word garments has also taken on a that if the Lord was offended by being the more innocuous special meaning to the Saints, and vulgar usage of his name, then non-Mormon and even by nonmember, because the word itself borrows some vulgarly referring to Satan's realm without any reference to of the sacredness of the object it refers would have the delightful result of what it is that the person has failed to to, often euphemisms are used, some offending the devil. be a member of. of which border on the disrespectful. But today, while more decorous than Many Christians address each other as we also make much of words based in earlier generations, Saintspeak is brother and sister, but I believe that on active. No one ever asks "active in even more impenetrable than ever the usage in the early Restored what?" We know we mean active in before. The jargon of the Latter-day Church-"Br0ther Joseph" and 'ISister the church. ~~~d,regularly attending Saints is a barrier between "us" and Emma"-is the way Saints are called active, while that class "themn-and that may not really be of using the terms in the outside world once known as jack-Mormons are now regrettable. Saintspeak helps to set us today. However, bl~rm~nshave taken called, more kindly but less colorfully, apart from the world and to bind us brother and sister to be replacements for inactive. The adjectives have shifted to together, another link in the chain that Mr. and Mrs. ., even to the point of become nouns,too: "He's an inactive" we call Mormon culture. abbreviating them BY. and Sis. or Sr., is a perfectly understandable and and most of the time the words are acceptable sentence. Active/inactive has And whether Saintspeak is good or followed by the last name rather than bad, it's with us to stay. In some thatgiven a rise to semi-active, which means by the first. 1 found in Brazil that this comes to church cases, it's completely unavoidable. In extended to even greater extremes other cases, it's downright hilarious. sometimes and doesn't get drunk often among the Portuguese-speaking while those who drift away from the Saints: The formal word for you in Church are said to "go inactive." New Wine in Old Bottles Portuguese is 0 senhor or a senhorn (lit. Reclaiming lost souls used to be called By far the largest category of the lord or the lady); the Saints have activating, but now the word Saintspeak is the words and phrases now replaced the old word for you reactivating is dominant. that already exist in English, but that with the expression o irmao or a irma Mormons use with special meanings. (the brother or the sister). Since the use Of course, one of the ripest fields for For instance, the word sacrament has a of brother and sister originated to plucking unusual Mormon meanings

25 Sunstone for good old words is the area of interchangeably. Revelation and callings in and divisions of the inspiration are radically different, with Church. Catholics would hardly inspiration much more common and recognize a similarity between our much less binding-if you claim to deacons and bishops and theirs, while receive inspiration, no one bats an eye, we have used the word elder to refer to but if you claim to receive revelation men eighteen and older who haven't you had better qualify the term and yet risen to the highest priesthood call it personal revelations. Revelation is offices. It is arguable that home teacher the business of prophets, seers, and and visiting teacher have risen to the revelators. status of new compound words in the Which brings us to one of the most Mormon lexicon, while bishopric has absurd distinctions. I have heard many been twisted almost beyond a desperately learned discourse trying recognition. Non-Mormons to prove that prophets are people who understand the word to mean the area see the future, seers are people who over which a bishop presides or the 'Y have the Urim and Thummim or who actual office of bishop, while we use at least see both the future and the ward to mean the former and have no past, and revelators are those who pass adequate term for the latter (though I WOULD on the Lord's dicta to the Church. In have heard bishophood from time to actual usage, of course, there is no time). To us, bishopric means the such regular distinction, and the bishop and his counselors themselves, LIKE scriptures make hash of any such and "member of the bishopric" is a sophistry. We often do that to more high-flown phrase for first or ourselves, of course-find some words second counselor. TO that are used a lot and try to assign Our geographic divisions are also special meanings to them, thereby based on old words with new hoping to discover hidden truths in meanings. Stake arose from the the scripture. That has been done far metaphor of Zion being a tent, with STAND too often with light and truth and with the stakes being the firm posts that "Spirit of God" and "Holy Spirit," not support it; hence, stakes of Zion. Wards, to mention "spirit of Christ.' Usually, of course, were divisions of a city, as BEFORE of course, all the speaker or writer in New York; when Brigham Young really wants to do is point out that laid out Salt Lake City, he followed there are some different ideas meant the normal pattern and divided it into by all the terms-but the scriptures YOU" make no effort to follow the wards like any other city with a lot of hope for the future. However, he distinctions our modern medievalists departed from the practice Joseph try to manufacture. Smith had followed, and instead of Sustain has acquired the new meaning having one bishop per stake, and no of "lifting one's hand in sacrament stake president (just a president of the v meeting lo indicate consent." Many high council), he created the office of speakers try very hard to change that stake president and demoted bishops meaning to "indicating a vow to to be judges and administrators over support this action in every way individual wards. The city division possible." In actual fact the raising of came into use throughout the Church hands in support and opposition was as an ecclesiastical division, and when once a very serious voting process, at last Church and state were and leaders kept or lost their offices separated in Utah, the Church according to the vote. The Reorganized got to keep the wards. Church has taken the principle and Our meetinghouses have only recently gone one way, with their prophet's begun to be called such: for years the revelations often being revised by the entire building where a ward met was vote of the conference, while we have called the chapel, though the word still gone the other way, with the vote referred in a special sense to the large having lost virtually all meaning. room with pews. (But we never call Nowadays if a member raises his hand them pews-just benches.) The cultural in oppo;ition, he is more likely to find hall magically upgraded recreation halls himself out of the Church than to find a decade or so ago, and of course the person he opposed out of his whatever building is the site of most office. And as long as that is the case, stake conferences is called the stake sustaining will probably continue to house or, more recently, the stake mean the almost empty ritual of center. hand-raising. Our doctines have given rise to And semina y and institute, like many unusual distinctions between certain other institutional words, have come well-known religious words. I believe to have very specialized meanings to we are the only Church to have Latter-day Saints, as has the old completely distinct meanings for eternal evangelical term fellowshipping. And, life and immortality -most use them by analogy, when a new program was

May-June 1978 26 begun recently, fellowshipping gave rise Slrildny School was borrowed from the to friendshipping, a cold modern outside world, but Primary, Relief coinage that lacks many of the warm Society, and sacrament meeting are all connotations of the old English word our own creations. The first two also bgriending, which was discarded. refer to organizations as well as New Words and Terms meetings. But the most confused meeting of all is the poor Mutual, We haven't just restricted ourselves to which began as the Mutual changing old words to fit our new Improvement Association, shrank in needs. As with friendshipping, we have popular usage to Mutual and the MIA, coined new words by tacking new vanished altogether in official use for a endings on old words, by changing its short time, and then resurfaced with part of speech, or by combining two Mutual quite proper in reference to the old words to form a new compound. meeting (but not the organization!) But our most creative contributions to and MIA is still quite forbidden. In the English vocabulary have come in fact, of course, all the old names are the proper names we have lifted out of still very much in use: organization our newfound works of scripture and "We're leaders can change programs by fiat, have tacked onto hapless infants who but the language follows its own path. couldn't protest being labeled Mahonri, Nowhere has the obstinacvi of Church- Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, or Helaman. all members been more pronounced than Worse, of course, are the names that in the matter of the official Church already have cognates in English, like magazines. Ensign staffers despair Ether. And Alma was an old favorite when every day a signficant long before 1830-but outside the going percentage of letters from subscribers Mormon culture it was usually applied comes addressed to the improvement to infant girls. Era, which, after all, hasn't existed for Deseret is the name of every seventh back to many years. And even when Mormons business in Utah (along with Kolob, a get the name right, the pronunciation real estate company, and Zion's suffers. For those who have always everything), while Lamanite is Jackson wondered, the correct pronunciation of well-known among Indians and people Ensign is enf-sine, like a flag, not who travel the fringes of Mormon en'-sun, like a minor navy officer. The society-it has cropped up in dozens of " Friend, too, suffers from being called county the Children's Friend -the old names places, usually with the explanation that Mormons believe that all Indians will doubtless persist until the are Lamanites, which is not really true Millennium. of educated Mormons, though the New doctrines sometimes have meant myth persists in the less-informed new coinages, like the compound majority. words celestial kingdom, terrestrial The word seventy used as a noun kingdom, and telestial kingdom -which referring to an individual occurs only have now made it into in the Church, and first and second Merriam-Webster's Unabridged, counselor are certainly new compound though as strictly Mormon usages. words in the Mormon lexicon. Our And while celestial and terrestrial enjoy class divisions in Primary and Mutual perfectly sound existence on their have given rise to such new coinages own, telestial is a totally coined word, as targeteer, CTR pilot, and MIA Maid, having no currency outside Mormon and in the Church the first meanings circles. of beehive, laurel, sunbeam, and gaynote Our doctrines also give us spirit prison are to refer to persons rather than and a restricted meaning of paradise, things. while our rituals have brought forth The compound word General Authority such words as patriarchal blessing and is often abbreviate GA, pronounced endowment, which in their Mormon gee-aih -however, for years meanings are unintelligble to gentiles. missionaries have been prone to refer Allusions to the Catholic Church as the G.A., meaning the great and abominable Besides our strange vocabulary, we church of the devil, which is roundly lace our speech with a host of cursed in the Book of Mormon. Since allusions that utterly confuse anyone the Church is working to eliminate who hasn't grown up in Latter-day that anti-ecumenical epithet, that society. No Mormon has any doubt usage of the letters GA will doubtless about who is meant when someone make way for the other, less negative mentions the names Joseph and Oliver usage. and Brigham. Terms from Church history, too, can be intimidating: three Of course, new words were needed for witnesses, Nauvoo, Eliza R. Snow, United Church meetings and programs. Order, law of consecration, handcart

27 Sunston - companies, Winter Quarters, Kirtland, thy, thine. There are some exceptions, and Johnston's Army all dot our speech of course, particularly with new and are often used with little or no members, and the use of you seems to explanation at all. A newly baptized be increasingly acceptable. This is Saint will, of course, know all about probably because the mysteries of thou the Word of Wisdom, but he may be have never been plumbed by most undone by references to Jackson Saints. County-or, worse, to "going back to Verb conjugations, of course, are Jackson County"-especially since impossible. Art sounds too affected, most people who talk about going apparently, and are is used much more back have never been there in the first often. Wilt, hast, canst, and couldst are place. Furthermore, he'll search his usually replaced by will, have, can, and scriptures in vain, for there is no "The could, though some, struggling to find scriptural justification at all for the idea any archaism that might work, have of the Saints returning to Jackson used hath, goeth, and blesseth, as in County-only a mixture of statements "Please blesseth us." (If Shakespeare from General Authorities of priest- used the word, surely you can throw it yesteryear, never given final official in somewhere to make the prayer sanction. sound right!) DM hood Our references to scripture-like High Saintspeak also demands longer (pronounced dee and cee) and forms. Unto has completely replaced sticks-are quickly picked up by the the preposition to in prayer: We no newcomer; harder still are more didn't longer come to church, we come unto specific references like Section 121, church.This lengthening extenes to perhaps the best-known section in the phrases. We seem not to be able to D&C, at least by number. show say, simply, "We thank thee for this Most confusing of all, however, are meetinghousef'-instead it is the taglines we toss off regularly. We mandatory that we torture ourselves don't need to finish many redundantly up at with such flowery phrases as "We are quoted scriptures, and often we only deeply grateful unto thee that we have give the lead-in: "You know, 'Out of this beautiful edifice which we have in the best books' and all that." Nothing tbe which to meet in." withers an officious Saint like having Our ordinances, too, have speech someone equally obnoxious intone patterns. "You have been found nine little words: ,,It is the nature and worthy to be a,anced to the disposition of most men, ha ha ha." welfare of.. . ." is the inevitable formal We remind each other to "Eat meat declaration; "We the elders of Israel" sparingly," and continously misuse the " is often heard. Our everyday prayer statement that "the glory of God is fann. custom of closing "in the name of intelligence" to refer to education, Jesus Christ. Amen" has given rise to which is hardly what the context confusion in priesthood ordinances seems to imply. that usually begin "In the name of Language Patterns Jesus Christ . . ."-the usual ending is While Mormons talk like any other often redundantly added despite the American group under normal fact that it has already been used at circumstances, let them stand up in the beginning. And prayer usages like sacrament meeting, especially within a "in the name of thy beloved Son" have foot of a microphone, and they given rise to the very common use of immediately begin a speech pattern the phrase in closing a talk, which that can only be called High seems to imply, first, the the audience Saintspeak, to distinguish it from the is singular rather than plural and, common variety. The basic second, that the audience somehow distinguishing feature of High bears a paternal relationship to the Saintspeak is the incorrect use of the Savior. Fortunately the Lord and most conditional: "I would like to stand Saints respect the intentions of the before you"; "I would like to heart more than the fumblings of the introduce"; "I would like to bear you grammar. my testimony." There are other catch The Saintspeak Dictionary phrases, too many to list. Examples We need a dictionary. What Samuel are "Standing before you makes me Johnson did to the English and what very humble"; "I come before you this Noah Webster did to the Americans morning"; "please show it by the must surely be done to the Mormons. usual sign"; "I'd like to express my Not, of course, in the hope of gratitude." rectifying "incorrect" usage or freezing Prayers are even more formal. In most Saintspeak in its current form-both cases, the Lord is addressed in the objectives are abhorrent, not to second person singular: Thou, thee, mention impossible. Saintspeak is a

May-June 1978 28 living jargon that may someday rise to dialect and even language status, and a dictionary would be a tremendous record of contemporary speech patterns. I'm not a lexicographer. (There are lews those who question whether I'm literate.) But the project of creating a Mormon dictionary fascinates me, and I'm eager to be informed of more justify this claim-issues sufficiently examples of Saintspeak, whether in controversial to prompt the authors to the form of new meanings for old Books preface their work with the assurance words, completely new words and that they are active and believing phrases, or unusual speech patterns. Latter-day Saints. And if you have noticed examples of Building the City of God: Community and Saintspeak that I haven't mentioned Cooperation Among the Mormons The problem of the relationship here-and I have only scratched the Leonard Amngton, between the doctrines and the surface-I'd be delighted to hear from Feramorz Y. Fox, temporal social and economic you. Write to Dictionary, 117 "J" and Dean L. May programs of the Church has always Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103, and Deseret Book, 1976 been a source of lively controversy. tell me not only what the word or 477 pages, index; $7.95 From the beginning there has been a phrase is, but also how it is used and tendency for people to see Mormon where you've heard it, particularly if doctrine as applied to temporal affairs 6 * To the phrase through glasses colored by their own it's unusual. If I can browbeat the ' -* "building the city of publisher into letting me do so, the prejudices and self-interests. While d~rx6kGod'' means the this tendency applies both to liberals results of your contributions will a tempora1 appear in a later issue of Sunstone, and BUILDING and conservatives, it has been if the Saintspeak Dictionary ever OF GODCITY kingdomGod through governed his by particularly applicable lately to appears as a book, I promise to adherents of a consesvative brand of ,,,,,, ,,;:,,;.,,,.!,I. ,,,,,,, prophets. The social and economic philosophy mention your name. (As for money, ,q,~,,~,,,.t;!,. I;,,I~,,~~,~. organization through characterized by "rugged forget it. Dictionaries are made for fun, ,,,,,,, ::;,;:,';'.,;,,; ,,,,, this goal would not profit.) individualism" and laissez-faire be realized is the priesthood, which capitalism. This interpretation of the It is a mark of the vigor of our culture provides channels of authority and Gospel has been evident, for instance, that we have created such an active from the prophets and in public statements asserting that one private language. It seems only logical, Church councils to local bishops and could not be a faithful M~~~~ and in retrospect, that the gospel that so quorum leaders. ArringtOnf Fox and simultaneously believe in principles of drastically changed peoples' lifestyles, May have skillfully detailed the history cooperative political action and central careers, and even family patterns of this idea in Mormonism in all of its economic planning. Whatever the should also have an influence upon manifestations from Joseph Smith's sources of this interpretation may be, their speech. And the continuing Law of Consecration and Stewardship they are certainly contTadicte~by this growth of our speech will help to through Brigham Young's United history of social and economic further cement our unity as a people, Order to the present-day Church cooperation among the Mormons. will further separate us from the welfare system. They have collected world. And while at the top levels the and organized a large body of Because the historical record Church works to give us a uniquely information about economic challenges the prejudices of some Mormon image, Saintspeak is working cooperation among the Mormons, members of the Church, the authors at every level to make us uniquely especially about the consequences of have presented their material with Mormon in fact. putting cooperative programs into great restraint. While they did practice. They have shown that compare and contrast Mormon But in the meantime, maybe we ought communal living experiments with to start providing translators in economic cooperation has been widespread in the Church during 19th and 20th century non-Mormon sacrament meeting. communal movements, including I periods of general hardship also interestingly, that the failure of the Robert Owen, Fourier, and the Mormon experiments in communal hippies, they did not address another living were due not to the weaknesses nagging question: the similarities 1 of the people (the cause usually cited between the Ibformon doctrine* which by church authorities), but rather to the authors label "communitarianism", the outside pressures of mobs, of the and ~~n~munism.This question federal government, and of social and deserved at least a brief answer in political forces, such as the such a thorough treatise because it has transcontinental railroad and the been asked many times and should be discoveries of gold in california and laid to rest. The shape such an answer ORSON SCOT CARD is a Freelance writer Living Silver in Utah. should take is quite clearly implied in I in Salt Lake City with wife Kristine and newborn the book as it stands: there is no son Geoffrey. A frequent contributor to Sunstone, Historians often justify their craft by I Scott was recently nominated for a Hugo Award for common ideological ground between his short story, "Ender's Game," and for the John us that we must llnderstand Communism and Mormonism, but the W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction something of the past in order to actual experiences of living in a writer of the year-one of five nominees world- understand the present. There are a Mormon United Order or a commune wide for each award. number of contemporary issues which

29 Sunstone