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Mormons Say (and Do) the Darndest Things
You know, we don’t talk like regular people, us Mormons. Or as a friend of mine when I was a teenager in Germany misunderstood me to say, Normans. Had to spend a few minutes telling her that as a people we had never stormed any British beaches. Nor, to my knowledge, was William the Conqueror secretly an LDS bishop whose conquest of Britain could be chalked up to a massive home teaching effort. On the whole, it is safe to say that the word “peculiar” can be applied to us in multitudinous ways that perplex the un-immersed masses. Not the least of which is our funky Mormon-y lexicon.
Our collection of common expressions didn’t just spring immaculately from the desert soil. The entire state of Utah spent most of its first hundred years isolated from the rest of the world, creating what is probably the largest small town on the planet. A group of people with common beliefs living in close proximity for long enough is going to have more than just language in common. Even without ever meeting, we Morms know each other pretty well.
As an LDS person, you could go clear across the globe, walk into a random LDS chapel, say “Consolidated Meeting Schedule” and everyone within earshot would know, without having the faintest idea who you were or where your mumbly accent came from, what you were referring The era when Light Dawned and the Celestial Kingdom Was In Sight because our Sundays would no longer be spent in eighteen years of Sunday School/Primary/Relief Society/Priesthood, followed by lunch and a return trip to the chapel for another twenty three years of Sacrament Meeting. Does the Journey Seem Long was our anthem before that time. After the change it became Father, This Hour Has Been One of Joy.
And guess what? The rest of the world is getting to know us now too. I mean who hasn’t heard of Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Donny and Marie, Napoleon Dynamite, and Sparkly Vampires? Heck, people are writing musicals about us! Given that our visibility is increasing, and our leaders are always telling us to go out there and mingle with the rest of the world, maybe it would behoove us to let people in on some of our more common ways of expressing ourselves. We owe it to them.
Our collection of common expressions didn’t just spring immaculately from the desert soil. The entire state of Utah spent most of its first hundred years isolated from the rest of the world, creating what is probably the largest small town on the planet. A group of people with common beliefs living in close proximity for long enough is going to have more than just language in common. Even without ever meeting, we Morms know each other pretty well.
As an LDS person, you could go clear across the globe, walk into a random LDS chapel, say “Consolidated Meeting Schedule” and everyone within earshot would know, without having the faintest idea who you were or where your mumbly accent came from, what you were referring The era when Light Dawned and the Celestial Kingdom Was In Sight because our Sundays would no longer be spent in eighteen years of Sunday School/Primary/Relief Society/Priesthood, followed by lunch and a return trip to the chapel for another twenty three years of Sacrament Meeting. Does the Journey Seem Long was our anthem before that time. After the change it became Father, This Hour Has Been One of Joy.
And guess what? The rest of the world is getting to know us now too. I mean who hasn’t heard of Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Donny and Marie, Napoleon Dynamite, and Sparkly Vampires? Heck, people are writing musicals about us! Given that our visibility is increasing, and our leaders are always telling us to go out there and mingle with the rest of the world, maybe it would behoove us to let people in on some of our more common ways of expressing ourselves. We owe it to them.
215 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 19, 2014
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August 19, 2015
The first part of the book with the definitions was entertaining. They're mostly stereotypes of mid-20th century Utah Mormons, though some are still relevant. But they were still entertaining. The brief recipe section has a couple I plan to try. Wish there were more there. But then the rest of the book appears to be nothing more than completely unrelated blog posts, none with anything of substance at all to say. The author clearly did the bare minimum of effort to get a book out, and it shows.
Displaying 1 of 1 review