In the yearbooks, why 'lands' not 'countries'?

by LoveUniHateExams 26 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  LoveUniHateExams

  Why does Watchtower say that the 'world-wide preaching work' occurs in x amount of lands, not countries?

  Well, I have a theory.

  Hear me out.

  My theory is that Watchtower prefers lands because the first syllable of countries sounds exactly the same as the C-word.

  This sounds absolutely nuts but I remember a brother who would read out e.g. 1998/9 as nineteen ninety-eight *stroke* nine but never *slash* nine (in British slang, to have a slash/go for a slash is an impolite way of saying to urinate).

  I can't be 100% sure but I feel fairly certain.

  Anyway, I'd love to hear your input, all you posters at JWN ...
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  OrphanCrow

  The WTS has historically used "lands" to refer to any land surrounded by water. That way they can count little wee islands as "lands" to make it seem like they have more impact than they really do.

  The other thing that using "lands" does, is that it is a f*** you to "earthly" governments that define countries by politically determined borders. It is the WTS' attempt to lay claim to being in charge of the entire world.

  The use of "lands" as a geographical determination reveals the WTS' arrogance in defining the world in their way and not anybody else's way.
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  tiki

  Countries have boundaries set by politics. Lands are just areas of dirt, rock...mineral....no reason. They're just a peculiar bunch who see things from a very odd perspective.

  And they wanna sound way cool.....haha
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  stuckinarut2

  What orphan said above....
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  sir82

  "Lands" is intentionally non-specific, so they can incorporate various entities that are not independent "countries".

  For example, there are separate lines in the year-end report for "Puerto Rico" and "United States".

  Puerto Rico is of course part of the United States, but for whatever reason, they prefer to separate it out.
  
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  Simon

  I think "lands" sounds more biblical.

  "and unto the lands of UK they doth went, to speak unto the commission who were investigating their shenanigans"
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  sparrowdown

  "Lands" sounds more fairytale.

  Once upon a time, far far away, Jehovah the evil King of Witness Land forced all his subjects to go out from among themselves and capture more slaves for him from all the surrounding lands......
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  Londo111

  This was brought up at the ARC.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  Good points everyone, all your comments makes sense.

  This was brought up at the ARC - and what was the answer?

  Just re that brother I mentioned - it's all true, no word of a lie.

  I thought this brother had something against saying slash in favour of stroke, so I deliberately pronounced 1998/9 as saying slash several times in a row. The brother counselled me "you shouldn't say slash, you should say stroke".

  God's honest.
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  OrphanCrow

  Londo: This was brought up at the ARC.

  Yes, it was. I remember being a bit puzzled as to why Angus was pursuing that line of questioning. And then I did some unrelated work using the WT's old yearbook service reports and it occurred to me that Angus was trying to get at how the WTS had no respect for "earthly" governments - to the point that the WTS defines their own countries/lands with little to no regard for secular authority.

  I even went and dug around in the videos and transcripts from the ARC to re-visit Angus' questioning but he had dropped it without pushing too hard. I think that Angus threw the hook out but the WT guy didn't take it.