This has been my third class this semester for my “Advanced English Grammar” class and it’s the third time I write a post about something that was said in class that made me think. Yes again! I was wondering if anything would come up tonight…
We were talking about the job of definite articles such as “the”. I know it seems pretty simple, but let me tell you that sometimes, things are hard to grab. Anyways, we were talking about the difference (in meanings) of two simple sentences:
1. I see light.
2. I see the light.
We saw that when the article “the” is used, it means that it points to something specific, among a variety of stuff in a same group, pointing at one in particular. So to see “the light” meant that someone had to first KNOW that there was light somewhere, and then finally come to see it and say “I see the light”. Someone who would be in total darkness and suddenly, without prior knowledge of any light coming, would see the room filled with light, would indeed say “I see light”. I’m not sure if my explanations are grammatical and if I got it right but anyhow…
The teacher told us about the “religious” meaning. She asked us what it meant to “See the light”. Some people said “God… I guess” and “The truth”. The teacher went on to say that since people spoke of seeing “THE light” (not just light) they had to have a certain prior knowledge of “the light”, they had to believe that “truth” existed. “The” was pointing to a particular truth, not any.
So I found it interesting that we again somehow managed to talk about God’s stuff in class… It really made me wonder why the teacher inserted this piece of info in her class. It was not necessarily needed. Maybe an other example to help us understand. But I sort of hoped for a second that she was a Christian and wanted to make us think… I’m pretty sure I am wrong about this, but eh. It brings me joy to have unbelievers talking about stuff like that a five minutes.
6 Comments
maybe she is christian…why dont you ask her?
You see, I really felt like she could be one, but that hope vanished in 2 seconds. I don’t see her being a Christian just because of the way she speaks about the “religious” stuff. I didn’t write about it in my post, but she used the exppression “Halleluiah” a couple of times and she was saying it in a context that was more like “let’s make fun of it” more than anything else. It was not like she was putting Christianity down at all, but she just used the expression as pretty much anybody who is not a believer, uses it. But anyways, I would be scared to ask her if she’s a Christian. Why? Well, I am already scared of her as a teacher and I thought about it twice before writing “Have a restful weekend” at the end of an email I sent her when I asked her a formal question. But, I’ll see if she really could be one, who knows?
ah ok…well you never know..
i guess she may just be very open minded like alot of people on this planet..
I don’t know about the “openmindedness”. She used the expression “I see the light” because it fitted well with what we were studying and that’s about it…
Have you noticed that we do not see in the N-T someone that says ‘I can now see the light’ or ‘I see light’ when it concernes Jesus! - Just a thought.
Well… I guess that Paul can claim that he’d seen the light…
“As he (Saul) neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’” (Acts 9:3-5)
You’re right I don’t think it was ever written literally “I see the light” or such… but obviously there are instances where I bet people could have said such a thing, or at least, thought about it. And they would have been right in doing so.
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