Heard it on the grapevine

I was chatting with a friend by email recently when I used the expression "hear it on the grapevine" she had no clue what I was saying or how to interpret what I was saying. The reason she didn't understand is that English is her second language and she had never heard that saying before, quite understandable.


Later that day I was relaying the story to my kids who are teenagers and they looked at me with a blank look on their face, they also had never heard the expression and had no clue what it meant either! Now I was wondering if I didn't really speak English as no one was understanding me, lucky for me my wife assured me she knew what it meant and it was a pretty common saying in her opinion.

It got me thinking about how quickly things change in our language, the way our grandparents spoke and the phrases they use(d) can seem so foreign today, the language we speak is evolving changing with the times. Just think back 10 years, if someone used "lol" in a spoken conversation (or written for that matter) would you of known what it meant? May be you still don't! But it is commonly used now in casual writing and in verbal form with the younger generation. We say the same things as in years gone by, we just use different words and phrases.

As I was reading my Bible today I was reminded of how many different translations there are, over 100 where I was reading. One way I read is using an electronic Bible by doing so I am able to switch between the translations quite easily, as I switch I can see the terms and phrases change, in some translations there are "Thou's and Art's" everywhere in others it reads very "modern" (you can check it out here) The words and phrases in the Bible may change but the message it conveys is the same, adapted for us so that in our time we can still understand what the writers of 2000 + years ago wanted to convey.