Clue on “Jeopardy!” highlights correct name of the Church

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

I visited Poland and could get around ok speaking Czech, but I didn't spend much time there. My initial trip there was to visit Auschwitz. I love WW2 history and visited as many sites as I could in Central Europe.

I was going to spend a week in Poland in 2020, had a flight and a hotel all paid for, and then bam, covid. I was starting to bone up on Polish (I speak German, but not sure how welcome that language is there). It was very disappointing.

Hey, my Latin teacher in my high school just outside of Toronto, Canada, was of Czech ancestry -- I was under the impression that his family may have escaped from the communist regime before the Iron Curtain came down. His surname was Seles. And he once referred to himself during class as a "cancelled Czech," which the class found amusing. He was a great teacher.

[sunstoned]

3 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I was going to spend a week in Poland in 2020, had a flight and a hotel all paid for, and then bam, covid. I was starting to bone up on Polish (I speak German, but not sure how welcome that language is there). It was very disappointing.

Hey, my Latin teacher in my high school just outside of Toronto, Canada, was of Czech ancestry -- I was under the impression that his family may have escaped from the communist regime before the Iron Curtain came down. His surname was Seles. And he once referred to himself during class as a "cancelled Czech," which the class found amusing. He was a great teacher.

If you go, be sure to pick up some Polish pottery.  Excellent workmanship and much cheaper than buying it in the states.

[MiserereNobis]

Weren't @rongo's parents on a mission in the Czech Republic recently? Someone's parents were.

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

I admire how freedom loving the Czechs are. There was a museum exhibit I visited that was about Prague Spring (1968) when the Czechs tried to introduce human rights and the USSR invaded. It was quite touching. So many people told me how much they hated the communists.

Yes. I grew up listening to my father's stories of what it was really like to live in a 'progressive' paradise, but he always ended by assuring me that the Czech people would rise up someday and break their shackles. Decades later, they seem overwhelmingly not to have forgot what they experienced, even though many were born after the fact.

Quote

The history of the Velvet Revolution is quite amazing, too

My father LOVED Václav Havel and his role in peacefully leading Czechoslovakia and then peacefully overseeing its dissolution ... not least because he too was a 'Bohemian'. It grieved Dad so much to watch the creative class in the West abandon, in his opinion, what had largely been its traditional role of defending virtue.

[rongo]

32 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Weren't @rongo's parents on a mission in the Czech Republic recently? Someone's parents were.

They sure were! My dad presided over the Liberec branch Friday through Sunday, and they were the office couple Monday through Thursday in Prague.

[Stargazer]

29 minutes ago, rongo said:

They sure were! My dad presided over the Liberec branch Friday through Sunday, and they were the office couple Monday through Thursday in Prague.

Do they speak Czech? If so, did they learn it at the MTC?

[Scott Lloyd]

On 1/8/2022 at 5:21 AM, Calm said:

Were any at odds when Pres Monson did the I’m a Mormon promotion?  Back then, would you have predicted President Nelson would have not only push for a change, but invested quite a bit of money in making it happen?  The website names were unlikely to have been cheap, for example.

No, the “course correction” from President Nelson came as somewhat of a surprise to me, as it did to others. But I hasten to add that his reasoning makes eminent sense to me. Furthermore, the directive for Church members not to refer to it as “the Mormon Church” (which did not forbid use of “Mormon” to denote Church members) had already been in place for a long time, long before the height of the “I’m a Mormon” promotional  campaign. I don’t think a persuasive case can be made that any of the high Church leaders dissented from that already existing directive. In hindsight, President Nelson’s “course correction” seems a logical progression of that earlier directive, and I reiterate, it seems none among the high leadership of the Church are pushing back on the course correction, or, as some here are fantasizing, are merely waiting for President Nelson to die so that they can get things back to how they were before. 
 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[rongo]

On 1/10/2022 at 5:44 PM, Stargazer said:

Do they speak Czech? If so, did they learn it at the MTC?

They learned it, but not as fluently as young missionaries, I would say. Same with Polish. They said it was stressful cleaning up missionary messes (car accidents, angry landlords, etc) when your language skills aren't top shelf .y dad had to speak enough as branch president to conduct interviews and run the branch.

German is the #1 foreign language in school in Poland,and they were in the Sudetenland in the CR, so my dad's German came in handy. The 2nd mission president in Poland was a Polish CES man in Germany. His young children only knew German, and it meant a lot to them that he could kid around and horseplay with them.

[Scott Lloyd]

On 1/8/2022 at 6:08 AM, Navidad said:

Yes it is. I would suggest the formal name of the LDS Church here in Mexico is virtually completely (is that a tautology?) unknown.

It’s not a tautology. It’s a contradiction in terms. Virtually means nearly or almost; completely means totally or entirely. A tautology expresses the same meaning twice, as in “they came in succession one after the other.” Virtually and completely don’t have the same meaning, so they can’t comprise a tautology. 
 

And I don’t believe your assertion that the proper name of the Church is “completely unknown” in Mexico. Surely the members of the Church (who comprise a not inconsiderable portion of the population, given the dozen temples, 20 missions and 199 stakes in that land) would know it, as would many of their close acquaintances. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

And I don’t believe your assertion that the proper name of the Church is “completely unknown” in Mexico. Surely the members of the Church (who comprise a not inconsiderable portion of the population, given the dozen temples, 20 missions and 199 stakes in that land) would know it, as would many of their close acquaintances. 

Maybe someone fluent enough in Spanish could look up the top five newspapers in Mexico and do a search for “la iglesia si jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias”.

[Scott Lloyd]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Maybe someone fluent enough in Spanish could look up the top five newspapers in Mexico and do a search for “la iglesia si jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias”.

Even if the name appeared in none of them, it would not rebut my point, which is to contradict the assertion that the proper name of the Church is “completely unknown” in Mexico. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

37 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Even if the name appeared in none of them, it would not rebut my point, which is to contradict the assertion that the proper name of the Church is “completely unknown” in Mexico. 

I am not trying to rebut your claim, but support it….which it would if appearing in mainstream Mexican Lakers.
 

If newspapers there are considerate, seems like they would make the effort which would help.

While commonly known as the Mormon Church, I would be very surprised if that was all it was known as.  I may talk to my brother who goes down there for work on occasion.  My younger brother went on a mission there, but probably too long ago to be relevant and I don’t think he has done much traveling with Covid, but he might have hit the place a few times the last five years.  They both know Spanish so could be engaging with the local newspapers, etc  

There is also the tourist factor. Tour guides will likely pick up in what groups want to be called and there are a number of Latter-day Saints that do the tours. Their knowledge could easily be spread. 
 

There might be some stories here to look for in mainstream papers. 
 

https://noticias.laiglesiadejesucristo.org/?country=mexico

Edited February 1, 2022 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

I am not trying to rebut your claim, but support it….which it would if appearing in mainstream Mexican [papers]. 
 

I appreciate that, but I still say that even the absence of the proper name of the Church in the nation’s top five newspapers would not be enough to negate the fact that the Church has a considerable presence* in Mexico and the members there, if no one else, would certainly be aware of the proper name. 
 

*199 is a lot of stakes in a single country. In the country where I served my mission, Sweden, there are only three, and there weren’t any there when I began my mission. 
 

When Navidad said the proper name of the Church is “virtually completely [sic] unknown” in Mexico, I think he got carried away in hyperbole to the point that he lost sight of word meanings, somewhat like folks who use the word “literally” in statements that cannot possibly be taken literally, as in “I literally died from boredom.”

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

It’s a contradiction in terms. Virtually means nearly or almost; completely means totally or entirely.

I don't see how that's a contradiction though. If virtually means nearly, and completely means totally, then virtually completely would mean nearly entirely, or perhaps almost entirely.

Now, I'll readily admit that "virtually completely" isn't an oft used expression (see, e.g., here), but it is an entirely sensible one.

And it makes sense with what Navidad was saying, about how nearly everyone in Mexico is ignorant of the Church's formal name - at least it made sense to me. YMMV.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

42 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I don't see how that's a contradiction though. If virtually means nearly, and completely means totally, then virtually completely would mean nearly entirely, or perhaps almost entirely.

Now, I'll readily admit that "virtually completely" isn't an oft used expression (see, e.g., here), but it is an entirely sensible one.

And it makes sense with what Navidad was saying, about how nearly everyone in Mexico is ignorant of the Church's formal name - at least it made sense to me. YMMV.

 

I see your point. But even if the statement is taken in that way, “completely” is redundant, as “almost” and “almost completely” have the same meeting. 
 

Moreover, the evidence suggests that Navidad intended “virtually” and “completely” to convey the same meaning when he implied through his question that “virtually completely” could be a tautology. 
 

And I still have trouble believing that the correct name of the Church is virtually(or completely) unheard of in a country where the Church comprises 199 stakes and 20 missions. It may be uncommon in some quarters, but the entire country?

Edited February 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[SeekingUnderstanding]

21 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I see your point. But even if the statement is taken in that way, “completely” is redundant, as “almost” and “almost completely” have the same meeting. 
 

Moreover, the evidence suggests that Navidad intended “virtually” and “completely” to convey the same meaning when he implied through his question that “virtually completely” could be a tautology. 
 

And I still have trouble believing that the correct name of the Church is virtually unheard of in a country where the Church comprises 199 stakes and 20 missions. It may be uncommon in some quarters, but the entire country?

You realize that less than 3 people per thousand identify as Latter-day Saints in Mexico?

[Navidad]

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I appreciate that, but I still say that even the absence of the proper name of the Church in the nation’s top five newspapers would not be enough to negate the fact that the Church has a considerable presence* in Mexico and the members there, if no one else, would certainly be aware of the proper name. 
 

*199 is a lot of stakes in a single country. In the country where I served my mission, Sweden, there are only three, and there weren’t any there when I began my mission. 
 

When Navidad said the proper name of the Church is “virtually completely [sic] unknown” in Mexico, I think he got carried away in hyperbole to the point that he lost sight of word meanings, somewhat like folks who use the word “literally” in statements that cannot possibly be taken literally, as in “I literally died from boredom.”

Ok, I yield to Scott's linguistic knowledge regarding tautologies. I also certainly understand his fluency in hyperbole. Amulek is also correct, I was simply trying to state that the correct name is not well known in Mexico. Members of the church are well known as Mormons and that is at best, a liminal (in its "in between" meaning) status. I will say that again, in my experience living and speaking here in conferences, mostly about religion in Mexico, I have never heard a non-LDS member use the complete and correct name of the church when referring to it. This includes anthropologists, historians, and other Mexican academics. Members of the LDS church are Mormons and Mennonites are Mennonites. It matters not with which specific group of Mennonites, a specific Mennonite may identify. She is simply a Mennonite!

It goes without saying that members know the complete and formal name. I have heard members chastise non-members and other members in public for using the Mormon word. As far as the population data, it is challenging. The 2020 census data just came out last year and I haven't seen it yet. In previous government reports there have been wide discrepancies between the accounting for the LDS population in Mexico between the church and the census. In 2010 the church publicly claimed 1,400,000 members in Mexico. The census showed that 330,000 claimed to be members. Prior to the 2020 census the government expanded the religious groups included in the census. I don't know how that impacted the data related to the LDS church. For example, I believe there were in 2020, categories for the various Mormon fundamentalist groups by name.

Perhaps next week I can look up the data and compare the difference between current church data and census data. SeekingUnderstanding's data of 3 per 1000 may not be too far off since there are approximately 130,000,000 people in Mexico. Pentecostals seem to be growing rapidly all over Mexico. Of course, that is a loosely affiliated group like "Evangelical" and not a specific denomination or church. There are Pentecostals in many, if not most denominations here. Then there are also specifically Pentecostal groups like the Assemblies of God. They all seem to be doing quite well. From my experience here I would also maintain that very few folks here understand that neither Mennonites, nor members of the LDS church identify as Protestants.

[mfbukowski]

27 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Ok, I yield to Scott's linguistic knowledge regarding tautologies. I also certainly understand his fluency in hyperbole. Amulek is also correct, I was simply trying to state that the correct name is not well known in Mexico. Members of the church are well known as Mormons and that is at best, a liminal (in its "in between" meaning) status. I will say that again, in my experience living and speaking here in conferences, mostly about religion in Mexico, I have never heard a non-LDS member use the complete and correct name of the church when referring to it. This includes anthropologists, historians, and other Mexican academics. Members of the LDS church are Mormons and Mennonites are Mennonites. It matters not with which specific group of Mennonites, a specific Mennonite may identify. She is simply a Mennonite!

It goes without saying that members know the complete and formal name. I have heard members chastise non-members and other members in public for using the Mormon word. As far as the population data, it is challenging. The 2020 census data just came out last year and I haven't seen it yet. In previous government reports there have been wide discrepancies between the accounting for the LDS population in Mexico between the church and the census. In 2010 the church publicly claimed 1,400,000 members in Mexico. The census showed that 330,000 claimed to be members. Prior to the 2020 census the government expanded the religious groups included in the census. I don't know how that impacted the data related to the LDS church. For example, I believe there were in 2020, categories for the various Mormon fundamentalist groups by name.

Perhaps next week I can look up the data and compare the difference between current church data and census data. SeekingUnderstanding's data of 3 per 1000 may not be too far off since there are approximately 130,000,000 people in Mexico. Pentecostals seem to be growing rapidly all over Mexico. Of course, that is a loosely affiliated group like "Evangelical" and not a specific denomination or church. There are Pentecostals in many, if not most denominations here. Then there are also specifically Pentecostal groups like the Assemblies of God. They all seem to be doing quite well. From my experience here I would also maintain that very few folks here understand that neither Mennonites, nor members of the LDS church identify as Protestants.

What does census data or the number of members have to do with the name of the church, or tautologies?

President Nelson wants us to use the official name, no matter how many members we have 

Edited February 1, 2022 by mfbukowski

[Navidad]

45 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

What does census data or the number of members have to do with the name of the church, or tautologies?

President Nelson wants us to use the official name, no matter how many members we have 

It doesn't. I was simply piggy-backing on the discussion Scott and SeekingUnderstanding were having which clearly surrounded data - how many stakes and missions, etc - how many LDS per thousand Mexicans. The variance in the numbers are interesting. I have often discussed this with a religions-centered demographer I know up in Michigan. He always maintained (he has passed away) that 33% or so of every major church group are the core of the groups. They are the faithful ones whose identity is first and foremost with their religious group. He also said they were the core who worked, gave, and generally supported the particular religion. I think he was right and that might explain the difference between the two sets of numbers - 330,000 and 1,400,000. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Maybe someone fluent enough in Spanish could look up the top five newspapers in Mexico and do a search for “la iglesia si jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias”.

I have no clue what the top five newspapers in Mexico are, but a quick Google news search for the Spanish name of the Church plus 'Mexico' certainly turns up results. Many of them originate from the Church but not all, including a recent one from NotiPress that uses the word 'Mormon' in its headline but clearly sets it apart with inverted commas: 'Crece la comunidad "mormona" en México durante la pandemia' ['The "Mormon" community in Mexico grows during the pandemic'].

The article then goes on to call the Church by its correct and full name in the first instance, followed in brackets by 'also known as Mormons'. That plus the headline are the only two occurrences of the word Mormon, and all further references to the Church (three in total) strictly follow the style guide and use 'The Church of Jesus Christ'.

The article also notes, by the way, that 'according to data from' the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 1.2 million Mexicans are Latter-day Saints, meaning one out of every 108 Mexicans. This figure certainly doesn't match the latest census data, so I would be interested to know where it is coming from.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Scott Lloyd]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have no clue what the top five newspapers in Mexico are, but a quick Google news search for the Spanish name of the Church plus 'Mexico' certainly turns up results. Many of them originate from the Church but not all, including a recent one from NotiPress that uses the word 'Mormon' in its headline but clearly sets it apart with inverted commas: 'Crece la comunidad "mormona" en México durante la pandemia' ['The "Mormon" community in Mexico grows during the pandemic'].

The article then goes on to call the Church by its correct and full name in the first instance, followed in brackets by 'also known as Mormons'. That plus the headline are the only two occurrences of the word Mormon, and all further references to the Church (three in total) strictly follow the style guide and use 'The Church of Jesus Christ'.

The article also notes, by the way, that 'according to data from' the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 1.2 million Mexicans are Latter-day Saints, meaning one out of every 108 Mexicans. This figure certainly doesn't match the latest census data, so I would be interested to know where it is coming from.

This source from the Church reports in excess of 1.48 million members. It also updates the number of stakes in the country to 222, up from the 199 I cited earlier. 
 

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/mexico

I can’t readily find it now, but a Church source I saw earlier today said Mexico has the highest concentration of Latter-day Saints of any place outside the United States. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

10 hours ago, Navidad said:

It doesn't. I was simply piggy-backing on the discussion Scott and SeekingUnderstanding were having. …

I’m not having a discussion with SeekingUnderstanding. I haven’t even looked at his post. 
 

My interest has been in your assertion that the correct name of the Church is “completely” (or “virtually” or “virtually completely”) unknown in Mexico. It now appears that your evidence for this assertion is anecdotal at best.* Hamba, on the other hand, has cited a publication in Mexico that appears to be doing what at least some reputable publications in the United States are doing, and that is having the courtesy to use the name by which the Church self-identifies, even if, for the sake of clarity, they do include the nickname.  

*Added later: Assuming arguendo that these academics in your circle of acquaintance have never used the correct name of the Church in the conferences, etc., that you’ve attended, that does not compel the conclusion that the correct name is “unknown” to them. It could merely mean that they have elected, for whatever reason, not to use it. Old habits die hard, especially where there is some degree of intransigence, but that doesn’t rule out change percolating below the surface. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I have no clue what the top five newspapers in Mexico are ...

Apparently the newspaper with the largest circulation in Mexico is La Prensa. I did a search on its website, first by date (not good) and then by relevance (much better). The top story is one from two years ago about construction of a new temple in Puebla. It uses the correct and full name of the Church in the headline and in the body of the article, with all subsequent references being 'the Church of Jesus Christ'. The word Mormon never appears.

The second story is one about the differences between the Book of Mormon and the 'musical' of the same name. It likewise uses the correct and full name of the Church in the headline and in the body of the text, with other references shortened to the 'Church of Jesus Christ'. The word Mormon appears throughout this article but always as part of the construction 'Book of Mormon'.

The third story is similar to the first and reads like it was based off a media release from the Church (about the worldwide fast on Good Friday 2020).

The fourth story uses the correct and full name of the Church in its sub-headline and in the body of the text, using the short form thereafter, though in this case the clarification '(mormones)' appears once after the first appearance in the text. This was published in September last year.

The fifth story, which is from August 2018, amusingly is headlined 'Stop calling us Mormons, the Mormons ask'.

I also searched using the term mormones. Besides the usages above, I found a number of articles referring to people from the Church of the Firstborn in northern Mexico as 'Mormons'. I'm assuming they're a fundamentalist offshoot? Otherwise, the only other result near the top is a story about how three religious groups in America -- 'Evangelicals, Mormons and Christians' -- had lost faith in Donald Trump!

For what it may be worth ...

Edited February 2, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

23 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I can’t readily find it now, but a Church source I saw earlier today said Mexico has the highest concentration of Latter-day Saints of any place outside the United States. 

Second highest raw number in the world, I'm assuming? That's actually mentioned in the NotiPress article that I referenced above.

[Scott Lloyd]

2 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The fifth story, which is from August 2018, amusingly is headlined 'Stop calling us Mormons, the Mormons ask'.

As an erstwhile writer of headlines, I have to say that’s one of the more clever ones I’ve encountered.