At some point yesterday in a conversation on plurk (a.k.a. YATESNS – Yet Another Time Eating Social Networking Service) someone wrote the very simple and oft-repeated phrase, “God is good”. Well my contorted little mind realized that, depending on which word you place the accent you wind up with three very different meanings, but all of them valid. Linguists fight this issue all the time, particularly in languages meant more for speaking than writing – inflection changes everything.
So which one(s) strike you the most? We have:
- God is good.
- God is good.
- God is good.
Leave something in the combox if this kind of wordplay strikes your fancy. I think it’s both an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise, but maybe I’m rare in that belief.
The real word play comes in when you realize that the word good comes from the word God. For example, “Goodbye” is an contraction of “God be with ye.”
Personally, I generally stress good.
Yes, that is a whole different level of word play. It certainly seems to imply, to a certain extent, the second option – perfectly equating God and good.
I have to admit that I don’t have a favorite – I enjoy looking at it from all three perspectives because they mean so much when they’re put together. But again, I’m a little weird, so who knows.