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Interjections

I remember watching School House Rock during Saturday morning cartoons. My favorite was "Interjections". It was such a fun and exciting song. It taught me that an interjection was a remark used to express excitement, anger, or other emotions.

The dictionary was a second witness to my new found knowledge.

in·ter·jec·tion

noun \ˌint-ər-ˈjek-shən\

grammar : a spoken word, phrase, or sound that expresses sudden or strong feeling

I went merrily on my elementary school way, roller skating in neon pink and pig tails down the paved sidewalks of our neighborhood reveling in the fact that I knew exactly what an interjection was. Yeah, I sang the song while I smacked my bubble gum.

Then I grew up. That's right. I went to Junior High. I was a big kid. A lot of my friends had grown up over the summer too. So had their vocabulary. Some of them were using interjections that I had never heard before. Why did we all of a sudden need so many extra interjections? Was it a big kid thing? I mean, why couldn't we just SAY WHAT WE MEAN and leave those extra interjections in the back alley where they clearly belonged?

In High School I took a zero hour class called Seminary. I got up at 5am while my friends slept in so I could attend the 6am class. The year we studied the New Testament changed the meaning of interjections for me all together. It was the day we began with John 1:1.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The Chapter Heading says that Christ is the Word of God. This new idea was even more impactful when I read the Joseph Smith Translation of this verse:

"In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God."

Then it just jumped up and smacked me in the thinker. Jesus Christ is the Word. And I hear people use "Word" as an interjection all the time. Was I using that interjection? If I ever had I certainly wasn't going to do it ever again. My parents had taught me very well never to use the name of God as an interjection.

I discovered that D&C 93:8 also says that Jesus Christ is the Word. It was pretty exciting stuff. Then I began to wonder if there were any other interjections I might need to know about. I did not have to wait long to discover them. I found my answer in Matthew 5:33-37.

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:

35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

There were definitely a few more interjections in there that I would want to be careful of in the future. Some common interjections that I recognized immediately were "heaven", "stars", "land", "holy", "man" & "brother". I would do my best to watch out for those and just stick to "Oh yeah" and "No way".

Have you discovered any other sneaky interjections that I might need to teach my people to watch out for?

UPDATE!

Here is another one that recently

jumped up and smacked me in the thinker!

In Numbers 25 there is a lot of crazy stuff going on. The people of Israel have turned their hearts away from God and are worshipping Baal-peor. Who? Let's talk about that: Baal is the sun-god and has been worshipped in different ways throughout history. He gets a different "last name" depending on how or where he is being worshipped. So this is just some crazy Old Testament idol made out of gold right? No. It is much worse.

You may recognize one of this sun-god's names from a popular song or from 2 Kings chapter 1, as Baal-zebeb. A name which we easily associate with satan in our modern culture.

The Israelites were worshipping satan. And not in a good way (read the chapter). But a hero does emerge and saves the people from the wrath of God. Then God honors our hero with a blessing and a covenant of peace. But the bad guys are not so lucky. God gives a charge to Moses to get rid of those who threaten his people with all of this Baal-peor business.

It is the very last line in verse 18 that caught my attention in a new way. It says, "...for Peor's sake". That sounds like a very familiar interjection. It had my mind racing from "for Peor's sake" to "for Peter's sake", then to "for Pete's sake". I had always wondered if it refered to Peter the apostle, but I am grateful to have new perspective and a historical refrence. I will be careful of that one too. I certainly don't want to refrence satan in my interjections. I can't even bring myself to capitalize his name in my blog post.

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