"place" from placer mine, a future source of gold for the wt.
"Publisher," from going public and adding your personal endorsement, perhaps unique wording to the often bizarre ideas in the publications.
Odd choice of words
by Nevuela 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Giordano
Could have been worse they used to refer to the WT sales force as colporteur's......'In 19th-century America, the word colporteur (a French borrowing meaning "peddler") came to be used especially of door-to-door peddlers of religious books and tracts."
Those early 'peddler's were paid a fee ( percentage of the price of a book)to go door to door.
-
Darkknight757
As Baker said, it's all cult-speak.
-
pontoon
I always thought odd saying was "I'm ONE of Jehovah's Witnesses" instead of I'm a Jehovah's Witness.
-
Darkknight757
"One of" because there are many. Kinda funny since most people didn't even like identifying themselves as J-dumbs.
-
Pete Zahut
It's all about projecting a certain image and to use the word place or placement gives the idea that some thought and care was put into rather than it being a random haphazard occurrence such as "left" or "dropped off", "deposited" or handed out.
When you give away a litter of puppies, it sounds better if you say they were "placed " in new homes or "placed" with a new family, even if they were just gotten rid of to whomever would take them.
As far as the term "Publisher", again this is about projecting a more elevated image. A paperboy or paper carrier, delivers, drops off or distributes newspapers yet he is not considered to be a publisher. The Newspaper Publisher is a usually the owner of the Paper such as a large corporation. JW's used to use the magazines as an avenue to speak to people about their message and since they were part of a printing organization, the probably went with a newspaper term that projected a certain importance to what they were doing..
Now that they're silently standing by carts full of literature, I'm not sure what they'd call this. Possibly Cart Attendants?
-
prologos
G: "Those early 'peddler's were paid a fee ( percentage of the price of a book)to go door to door.
col-porteur, french: parcel carrier . There were special rates at the hall, for Pioneers, col-parcel-carriers. I believe pioneers got half price at the counters, for special pioneers, the 150 hrs per month kind, mags, literature was free, even bibles, at the assemblies. so were meals. or?
-
LongHairGal
Witnesses differ just for the sake of being different. Also, I suppose they didn't want it to sound commercial.
I was never impressed with their choice of words, especially when referring to their place of worship as a Kingdom Hall instead of a church. I just thought they were stupid and obstinate.
-
Vidiot
pontoon - "I always thought odd saying was 'I'm ONE of Jehovah's Witnesses' instead of 'I'm a Jehovah's Witness'..."
Same.
I still scratch my head over that one, 'specially 'cause my mom insists on doing it.
I asked her once "what's the difference?"... I don't specifically remember her answer, but it struck me as semantic bullshit.
-
blondie
The WTS feels that saying "a Jehovah's Witness" makes it sound like it is a religion's name rather than a description what the person does, one of Jehovah's witnesses.
Russell's enemies called his followers "Russellites" but that was never used by the Bible Students....chosen because it did not honor a man.
Up until about 1970, the phrase "Jehovah's witnesses" was also printed with a small "w" for example, Jehovah's witnesses not Jehovah's Witnesses as it is today.
For a short space of time the WTS used the phrase "Jehovah's Christian Witnesses" but then dropped the "Christian." I was told that an ex-jw group copyrighted "Jehovah's Christian Witnesses" and used it in the name of their organization and fooled many jws that looked in the phone book for the nearest KH or phone contact. That may be the same reason why the WTS put it in the KM that no KH's would have it listed on their signs, Jehovah's Christian Witnesses.
*** km 4/79 p. 4 Announcements ***Is it appropriate to have a Kingdom Hall sign saying: “Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses”? So there will be uniformity, the Society encourages all to make their signs read: “Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”