ERHAPS SOMEDAY I will reveal what I think of William F. Buckley—if could be persuaded that people care one way or the other about my views. For the moment, I will simply say something nobody will dispute: his television shows were on a high level; a level that would not be tolerated today. Mr. Buckley interviewed all sorts of people on his television show: Mother Theresa, Fulton J. Sheen, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Norman Mailer, Jesse Jackson, E. Howard Hunt, Richard Nixon, and so forth.
In this clip, somebody asks Mr. Buckley why he uses such a large vocabulary:
Mr. Buckley is not wrong. In fact, you can download a fascinating PDF file of “The Trials Of A Translator” (Monsignor Ronald A. Knox, 1949) if you click here. The same book is also called “On Englishing the Bible.” I’m not really sure why the same book has two different titles.
A Difficult Word :
A very difficult and confusing word is found in the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible:
Douay-Rheims — (Luke 5: 9) For he was wholly astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken…
The word “draught” is pronounced here as if it were “draft.” We pronounce “slaughter” differently than we pronounce “laughter.” I believe that Miller Genuine Draft could also be spelled: “Miller Genuine Draught.” (not kidding) Monsignor Knox wisely changes that difficult word in his Bible translation: (Luke 5: 9) “Such amazement had overcome both him and all his crew, at the catch of fish they had made…”
