Exod. 12: 26, in "Young's Analytical Concordance", he will not find it, simply because

there is no word in the original that stands for it, the literal version of Exod. 12: 26

reading "What is this service to you?" but of course the intention is evident just the same.

In this series our purpose is to consider from a variety of angles, this great question of

"meaning" and "intention" in order that in the study of the Inspired Words, we may attain

unto a fuller understanding of the Inspired Word.

perception, conception, intelligence, conclusion, thinking, considering, understanding, the

heart, the mind, learning, remembering, accounting, knowledge and acknowledgment,

acquaintance,  wisdom,  prudence,  reason,  comparison,  reception,  judgment,

enlightenment, fitness, growth, inclination, experience, ideas, persuasion, reflection,

search, study, exercise, fellowship, and practice. Added to this list could be concomitant

delight, love of the truth, and holding of the form of sound words. These are some of the

ways along which the mind travels as it seeks "meaning".

As an illustration both of the wonder of words, and the pitfalls to avoid when seeking

their meaning we will consider in this article some mistakes and misconceptions that

have crept into our language. Here are a few odd items of interest collected together

without any attempt at classification.

Adamant.  This word in Greek means "the invincible" and in order to illustrate this

quality the word was used to indicate the hardest metal, probably steel, and then from the

German demant via the French diamant we reach the English diamond. Some late Latin

writers however misunderstood the word and read it adamantem (lapidem) "the loving"

(stone) and then applied it to the load-stone. This accounts for such strange expressions

as "the armorous steel" Norris (1678) and Thomas Fuller (1648) asks of the loadstone

"how first it fell in love with the north?" Here is an example to show what a crop of

strange ideas a false etymology can produce.

When the writer was a boy, a favourite joint at the week-end dinner table was "The

aitch-bone" of beef, and he remembers in answer to the question "why?" that there was

some supposed resemblance to the letter H. Others at different times have speculated on

this name and propounded ash-bone, each-bone, edge-bone (100: Lamb) and ice-bone. The

mistake arises out of the failure to realize that just as "an apron" originally was a napron,

a form still preserved in napkin and napery, and "an adder" was originally a nadder, so