On Saturday morning I was only half-listening to NPR on the car radio. My ears perked up as the announcer stumbled repeatedly over the pronunciation of the word “apostolic” in an item about the Catholic church. The word “apostle” is, of course, familiar to everyone, and has its accent on the second syllable; “apostolic” has accents on the first and third, and the announcer kept trying to utter a-POS-to-lic but sensed that was not correct.
“Apostolic” is a familiar word to even occasional Christians because of the Nicene creed, which lists the tenets of the faith and which is regularly recited at the services for every denomination. (“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church” is said every Sunday at my Episcopal parish.)
I’m all for learning about other cultures and other religions, but not if it means that supposedly educated people do not know the first thing about their own. © 2009 Stephen Yuen
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