Joe Smith (and maybe Oliver Cowdery) didn't know how to spell the word bare.

So now millions of mormons bear their testimony instead of baring it.

I ran across a bear your testimony group on facebook today and burst out laughing at how stupid this guy was that he would start a group and spell the name of his group wrong. Then I thought, wait a sec (I've been out of the church a looooong time) that's how mormons spell it. So I googled bear your testimony and the entire first page was references to LDS sites/blogs/etc.

Then I went to lds.org and searched for bear testimony and it was all to the three and a half scriptures that Smith wrote The only reference to bear and testimony in the same scripture in the bible was in the JST translation. WHere he changed the spelling of bare to bear! lol

I believe bear testimony or bear witness would be the correct spelling. According to my dictionary.

Usage determines correctness.

http://funnymormons.com/2010/08/bear-or-bare-your-testimony/

that the mormon's century and a half if misspelling the word hadn't managed to make it into someone's dictionary. Bear does mean, in the mormon corridor and in scattered meetinghouses across the US, bare now. Like Santorum (from former Senator Rick Santorum) means something completely different from his name.

That was even part of my point, Smith's misspelling of the word bare created a new word due to the success of mormonism to convert people to their religion and bear children who would bear their testimonies.

He also created some words himself that have been maintained in Mormonism's lexicon.

The verb, "bear," as in to bear testimony or bear witness, means to offer or to render. It is not a misspelling of the word, "bare."

The verb, "bare," means to uncover or reveal, and while you could make a case for "baring" one's testimony in that sense, it is not correct, and Joseph Smith did not mean that.

Personally, I like the phrase "bury my testimony." Surely that is what Joseph really meant, especially when spoken with a backwoods accent, as in, "Ah'd lahk ta bury my testimony."

bury my testimony - sounds appropriate.

I once hear someone in testimony meeting accidently say "I'd like to tear my testimony."

More like tear it to shreds!

I think that's odd, although I can see why you might think that. I've always thought of it as bearing testimony or witness, in which case "bear" actually is the correct word.

mammals of the family Ursidae (commonly known as "bears"). You know, as in, don't hog your testimony to yourself, be like a bear -- come out of your cave and poop your testimony out for everyone to enjoy and then go back into the cave to sleep.

So that's what a bear testimony means or, in the verb form, that's what it means to bear one's testimony.

I would never bare a testimony, unless I was particularly well endowed.

;o)

Why would anyone BARE their testimony? I guess you can make it bare, kind of like you can make your body bare.

Here's from Dictionary.com

Bear:
14. to transmit or spread (gossip, tales, etc.).
15. to render; afford; give: to bear witness; to bear testimony.

Bare:
8. to open to view; reveal or divulge: to bare one's arms; to bare damaging new facts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2011 10:25AM by kimball.

It's okay, he put "that a way" and 'they was a'preachin'' in the first edition of the BOM.
I'm sorry I can't remember where exactly but I'm sure the Tanner reference would show it.

His lack of grammar was astounding enough to read in the first edition of the BOM to make up for any spelling errors he might have had.

No wonder the church did away with the first edition. If normal people had it to read they would quickly come to the obvious conclusion that the BOM was written by a man.

In fact, one of the best presents you could give a raving TBM would be a copy of the first edition of the BOM. It could be enough to de-convert them if they ever started to read it!

So, which is it?

"Bare-assed nekkid"

"Bear-assed nekkid"

"Bair-assed nekkid"

or

None of the above?

Just wonderin'...

Ron

Oh well.......... Yanks tend to make up their own spellings for lots of perfectly good English words.
one more makes no difference

do you? <raises eyebrows>

Of course we do, because Charles Martin Hall of Ohio was the genius that figured out how to cheaply manufacure it for mass usage. :)

His patent documents dubbed it aluminum not aluminium. Aluminum is the usable alloy, aluminium is the base metal. :P

Just sayin'...

Ron

Steve, you should take a grammar lesson. to bare only refers to going uncovered as in without clothes. to bear is used for everything else; to carry, to endure, to maintain, large mammal...

http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/bare_bear.htm

Steve, the ignorance and quickness to judge of the uneducated never ceases to amaze me. If you learned anything at all in elementary school it should be how to find the correct answer to any question by understanding sources and references.