Setting gospel vernacular straight

In writing, in spoken discourse, in Internet chatter, they are invincible, like the omnipresent dust bunnies that collect under the piano in the Relief Society room.

They are common errors in LDS and gospel vernacular.

This is one writer's feeble attempt to identify a few of them and to set the record straight. I fully expect it will be universally ignored. Nevertheless, I press forward.

Incorrect: prophesy (as a noun)
Correct: prophecy

Incorrect: prophecy (as a verb)
Correct: prophesy

Incorrect: Book of Revelations (in the plural)
Correct: Book of Revelation (in the singular)

Incorrect: Kirkland, Ohio
Correct: Kirtland, Ohio

Incorrect: exhaltation
Correct: exaltation

Incorrect: high councilman, high counselor
Correct: high councilor

Incorrect: bishop's councilor
Correct: bishop's counselor

Incorrect: patriartical
Correct: patriarchal

Incorrect: apostacy
Correct: apostasy

Incorrect: apostacize
Correct: apostatize

Incorrect: opening, sacrament or closing "song"
Correct: opening, sacrament or closing hymn

Incorrect: "song on page ... "
Correct: "Hymn Number ... " (Except for ancillary material in the front and the back, the hymnbook does not have page numbers.)

Incorrect: conductor, chorister
Correct: music director or (Primary only) music leader (this according to guidelines received from the General Music Committee of the church some years ago)

Incorrect: "rest song," "break song," "stand-up hymn"
Correct: intermediate hymn, mid-session hymn

Incorrect: program
Correct: service

Incorrect: musical number
Correct: musical selection (again, according to the committee)

Incorrect: audience
Correct: congregation

Incorrect: to "bare" one's testimony
Correct: to bear one's testimony. This parallels similar expressions such as "to bear witness" or "to bear record." A dictionary definition of "bear" in this sense is "to give, offer or supply." A more concise way to put it is "to testify."

Incorrect: Book of Mormons or Books of Mormon (in the plural)
Correct: copies of the Book of Mormon. There is only one Book of Mormon with multiple copies thereof. To make this easier to see, try plugging in the name of another volume of scripture: One never says "Pearls of Great Price"; it is always "copies of the Pearl of Great Price."

Finally, pertaining to that long word in the 10th Article of Faith, "paradisiacal," I, and I suspect, most English speakers born into LDS homes, learned in Primary to pronounce it "per-uh-DI-suh-kel" (rhymes with "icicle"). Actually, the word has six syllables and should be pronounced "per-uh-duh-SI-uh-kel."

Try reading it that way in Sunday School class. You'll impress your fellow ward members. Or annoy them.

Readers may have their own examples to share. Feel free to e-mail them to the address below.
E-mail: rscott@desnews.com