A Godawful Observation

Source: Rita Ip

In my various pursuits, I make a casual study of the Hebrew language. One thing that people acquiring a new language find is that it gives us insight into our own language. For example when I was learning Danish, I learned that the word for circumstance is omstændighed. Om means about or around and stænde roughly translates to stance or standing. Therefore omstændighed literally translates to "the state of things around one." If we break down the English word, circum is Latin for around or about, and stance comes from the Latin word stare, meaning to stand. So circumstance literally means "the standing of the surroundings." It wasn't until I learned the Danish that I realized the roots of the English.

There are many other insights that language learning can provide other than etymology. A conspicuous example finds place in slang. If you were to say "rock on" in Danish, it would literally mean there's a stone on...something. You haven't specified that yet. Another thing, you can say "rock on," but "stone on" comes with completely different connotations. In Danish to express coolness (and not the temperature kind), you say something is fat. "He's a fat guy" = "He's a cool guy/cat." It really makes you examine your own slang and realize how illogical some of it sounds.

But now I come to my Hebrew observation. The word el in Hebrew means god. It finds itself in many modern personal names, e.g. Michael, who is like God?; Daniel, God is my judge; Nathaniel, God has given. You also see its cognate in the Arabic Allah, a contraction of al-ilah (the (sole) God).

However, god or deity isn't the only denotation of el. It also means mighty. Therefore in places like Psalm 82 (which is poetry) you get nice little word plays.

God (elohim) standeth in the congregation of the mighty (el, could also be rendered god); he judgeth among the gods (elohim).

 Elohim is merely the plural of eloah, a derivative of el, and can be translated as God, gods, or powers. It is the name of God in the Old Testament (HEB: Tanakh). You can see here that the poet uses the different connotations of elohim and el to make a nice wordplay.

But all poetry set aside, learning this fact about the Hebrew language made me realize something about my mother tongue. I've heard the expression godawful a decent number of times during my life, but in light of this, it gave the expression a new depth. Something that's godawful is mighty awful, or so terrible that only an omnipotent being could create such a debacle. This makes it possibly the biggest hyperbole known to the English language.