Witness

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Dr. Goodword
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Witness

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:19 pm

• witness •


Pronunciation: wit-nis • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Someone who sees an event and who therefore has first-hand knowledge of it. 2. Someone called to testify in court. 3. Evidence, proof. 4. Someone who publicly affirms (testifies to) a religious faith. 5. (Capitalized) A member of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Notes: Today's rather odd Good Word has the suffix -ness, usually used to nominalize adjectives (redness, closeness, firmness), to mark a personal noun. It may be used as a verb, as 'to witness an accident', whose present participle may be used as an adjective or action noun.

In Play: This word is most often used in the legal sense of someone called as a witness in a court trial: "Beauregard's defense lawyer claimed that all the uniformed police in the courtroom were there to intimidate his witnesses." The verbal usage is synonymous with the phrase 'to bear witness': "Johanna was at the party and witnessed the spectacle of Fred yodeling while bouncing around the room with a lampshade on his head."

Word History: This word is obviously based on wit, which derives from the PIE word weid- "to see". The relationship between "see" and "understand" is apparent every time we say, "I see (what you mean)". The meaning of the PIE word shifted to "to know" only in the Germanic languages, as it went into the making of German wissen "to know", Danish vis "wise" and vide "to know", and Dutch wijs "wise" and weten "to know", and English wise and wisdom. It retains its original meaning in the Romance languages, such as Latin video "I see" and visio(n) "vision", French voir, Italian videre, and Portuguese and Spanish ver "to see". The Slavic languages kept both meanings, as we see in Russian videt' "to see" and archaic vedat' "to know", Czech vidět "to see" and vědět "to know", and Polish widzieć "to see" and wiedzieć "to know". (Now a word of thanks is due Eileen Opiolka for spotting the oddity of today's ordinary Good Word and reporting it to us.)
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Philip Hudson
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Re: Witness

Postby Philip Hudson » Mon Dec 06, 2021 12:07 am

The word witness has importance in discussing ideas and beliefs. A post recently appeared that was apparently a hard sell witnessing effort for some religious organization. It was quickly taken down. I am a religious person and am glad I am a Christian. I am just a garden variety one, but I believe sincerely. There should be limits that keep us on the general topic of the English language. I should hope they are self-imposed limits. But if I get on my high horse about any topic that strains our relationship, please remind me. Let us watch out for each other and witness to the solidarity of our fellowship. I love this forum.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

George Kovac
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Re: Witness

Postby George Kovac » Tue Dec 07, 2021 12:29 am

Amen to all of that, Brother Philip.

I have found “witness” in the sense that (I think) Philip uses it (meaning #4 in Dr Goodword’s definition) to be an intriguing concept… a word that expresses a deep and sincere religious commitment (specifically Christian). In certain evangelical circles the word can become a supercharged call for affirmation of the preaching at hand, as in the preacher’s urgent call “can I get a witness?” The proper response is a thunderous “amen.”In James Baldwin’s “Go Tell it on the Mountain” there is a scene in which a congregant movingly sings a song with the lyric “can I get a witness?”…a softer, but no less urgent, variation on the theme.

So powerful is the emotion generated by that phrase that, inevitably, it found its way into secular territory as in the song about sexual passion titled “Can I Get a Witness?” Marvin Gaye had a hit single with that song in 1963, and shortly thereafter the young Rolling Stones recorded an even rawer version.

In another religious venue, the concept of “witness” is essential to explaining the process of Christian devotion and commitment. It elides meaning #4 with the legal sense of the word. The Christian witness gives his testimony to evidence the grace of God. Garry Wills, the foremost living scholar of Augustine of Hippo, thinks that “Confessions” is a misleading title for Augustine’s book, and that Augustine’s goal was not to write an autobiography. Wills thinks a more accurate title, consistent with what he sees as the nature of Augustine’s purpose in writing that book, would be “Testimony.” Can I get a witness?
"Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language." Zia Haider Rahman, New York Times 4/8/2016


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