At work I take minutes at a lot of meetings. Sometimes, months later, I type up my notes. I'll be typing along when I come across phrases like this, "I hope my committee will keep me on the Straight and Narrow !!!!" or "In the fullness of time!!!! that article will become more important." I always scribble around those words and add extra exclamation points. I think its because I get so excited when I hear Mormon talk in completely secular places. Where do they get those phrases if they don't read the Book of Mormon?
That reminds me...Last weekend I was at the rehearsal concert for Capital Fourth on the lawn of the Capitol. There were thousands of people. When the concert was over, my group hung around a while, taking pictures, marching around, and just being silly. As we were finally heading out, we walked past a group of people. One of them yelled out, "NEPHI!" and my head snapped up. Then he yelled out, "FAMILY HOME EVENING!" and I looked at him and waved. I yelled back, "I speak your language!" and he yelled back, "I saw the light in your eyes!" Both groups started laughing and we just kept walking without introducing ourselves. Around here you pretty much know, at least by facial recognition, all the Mormons in the area. But none of us knew them.
How strange.
5 comments:
Maggie, I love that. It really is funny how sometimes you can just pick people out. I remember when I was 16, my family was on vacation in Philadelphia, and as we waited in line to go to Independence Hall, we picked out a couple in line who we KNEW were Mormon. Eventually we were near them and got to chatting, and asked where they were from. American Fork. We just knew it.
oh. my. gosh.
that is soooooooooooooooooooooo funny! Jed and I can always tell when a family or person on TV is Mormon. It's just so easy to recognize. I love it!
I know why your colleagues speak like that! I wondered the same thing in my American Art class, someone said the phrase Line-upon-line and freaked me out. Then I started noticing Mormon-sounding phrases in 19th century artists' writings. Then I put it all together; most of these phrases actually originated in the Bible. We Mormons just concentrate on the words in the Book of Mormon and forget to cross-reference the phrases in the Bible. There are a TON that come from the Bible that we just assume came from the BoM. Meanwhile, the cultural-historical intelligentsia outside the bubble have picked up these same phrases because they're written in all of the literature they are studying! Then we litle Mormon interns and EA's get to inwardly giggle when they spout off in our language without knowing it. So fun! That's a great story about speaking each other's language. It's true. I was talking to a stranger on the metro platform a week or so ago and mentioned that I had gone to BYU, and all the sudden I hear this, "I KNEW IT!" behind us. Some random guy scoots closer to us and says, "Sorry, I have to interrupt. I've been overhearing your conversation for like 5 minutes and I just knew you [gestures at me] were going to be Mormon. Don't know what it was." I suggested it was my accent (I just hoped it wasn't my hair or my clothes!) Wow this is a novel. K bye. :)
that's freaking awesome!!! one of my favorite hobbies is to try and pick out mormons from big crowds... saw a bunch at the fireworks on the mall. :)
That was such a funny evening! I thought it was strange that we didn't know them--I wonder if they were from out of town?
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