limp2
March 5th, 2025
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Pot – kettle. Matthew 15: 1 ff.
Jesus was not fastidious in matters of personal hygiene himself according to the NT. I do not see his example being followed by many of followers today. Of course, the same could be said of other, more worthy, traits mentioned: charity, prison and hospital visits, child welfare.
It happened in real life. King Ferdinand VI of Spain had a pronounced lisping impediment, so his court began to lisp so as not to offend or draw attention to the king’s speech impediment. Soon, the whole country had picked up a lisp, which remains to this day in some parts of Spain.
In the movie Life of Brian , Pontius Pilate had a speech impediment with his R’s, and Brian’s followers mimicked Pilate’s speech impediment demanding that he welease Bwian, who, for the benefit of those who have not seen the movie, is a parody of Jesus. Likewise, Ponius Pilate’s friend, Biggus Dickus had a lisp and his speeches were accompanied by constant snickering.
If you haven’t seen the movie, it is one of the great black comedies of all times (IMHO). The film’s religious satire was viewed as blasphemy in a number of countries and was banned in Italy.
We got detention for owning up to watching L.O.B by the RE teacher…he was a right Knob…but then again which RE teacher wasn’t a complete knob-cheese?
The Spanish lisp story is baloney. Standard European Spanish pronunciation does have more or less a th sound, but it also has s. For example, casa (house) vs. caza (hunt), where the z in the latter is similar to English th. Would it make sense to lisp one, and not the other? No.
My casual impression is that s comes straight down from Latin, and the z is more likely to have been some other consonant(s); similar distinction in Italian. So if any of this had come out of someone’s lisp, you’d think it would have gone to the s.
In Portuguese they’re pronounced differently, too, though it’s the difference between voiced and unvoiced. New World Spanish is the only one that comes to mind where these consonants are all pronounced the same.