Vort

I have no idea. I don't recall ever hearing the complete song, let alone poe-tar-toe (regardless of where the emphasis is), only puh-TAY-toe and puh-TAH-toe. Jamie's spelling is phonetic when you factor in the non-rhotic British R, which would come only after a "short" ä, not a "long" ã (using "short" and "long" in the weird, stupid way they're used in describing English vowel pronunciation). So the word "tar" would be pronounced "tah" (or /ta:/) by a Brit, and therefore "potartoe" would be "poh-tah-toh" (technically, /pə ˈtɑː təʊ/).

Ewwwwwww! (We really need that icon, @pam.)

[...] PS: The index pluralizes it thusly: Anti-Nephi-Lehies. You say potato and I say potatoe... -ies it is. I wouldn't mind getting proven wrong, except that it happens so often.

"Anti" means "against" as in "opposite to", which does not necessarily mean "unlike". Consider e.g. the antipodes. I have wondered if the term means those Lehites who were adjacent to Nephi—that is, Lehites who would follow Nephi though were not of Nephi, rejecting the ancestral term "Laman", the way the (Nephite) children of Noah's priests cast off their ancestral names and turned their backs on their wicked fathers. In any case, your question has long been a topic of conversation among Latter-day Saints. I know of no authoritative answer. As a Nibleyphile, I give his opinion a lot of weight. But this is basically a topic of speculation until God, or perhaps a resurrected Mormon (or Joseph Smith), fills us in on the details.

That doesn't count because they're oppressed. Get on board with the correct opinion, you ignorant ignoramus.

Obvious and brilliant. I had always assumed, without thinking too deeply about it, that Aaron's having "gone up to the land of Nephi" was an immediate precursor to the sons' famous work there. But this is not at all implicit, and your reading is far more natural. I change my answer. You must be right. Ammon & Co. left before king Mosiah made his proposition to the people about having judges but after the sons' refusal to take the kingship. The whole matter, from king Mosiah's proposition to the adoption of system of judges, all took place within one Nephite year, probably within the same Nephite year as counted by their contemporary calendar. Thanks! This is really a good insight, one I'm a bit embarrassed to have missed but that I'm happy to learn. This actually makes a lot more sense when you consider that the Lamanite king (vassal king) Lamoni must have known who Ammon was and must have been excited at the prospect of having the powerful Nephite king Mosiah's son—perhaps the very crown prince—as his servant. It would have taken a period of time, months or perhaps years, for the news of the Nephites' political reforms to reach Lamanite ears. Lamoni doubtless thought of Ammon as a current Nephite prince and potentially a valuable ally against other Lamanite vassal kings and perhaps to some extent even his own father, all of whom he may well have considered to be his enemies.

A perhaps pedantic observation, but I don't believe the account of Ammon mentions sheep. It refers to the king's "flocks". Large ground birds, especially turkeys, are native to the Americas, so more than one reader has wondered if these flocks were not in fact avian in nature. Not meant as a correction, just as a by-the-way.

...normally, sons seem to be listed by birth order, so I'm guessing Ammon was older. If not, his chiefness in their ministry would have reflected his progress in repenting and turning to the Lord, I suppose. My guess is that Mosiah 29:2-3, the people wanted Aaron to be their king rather than Ammon either because they knew already that Ammon wouldn't (he'd been vocal about it) or because they just liked Aaron better or thought he would be a better king. Perhaps Ammon having refused is why king Mosiah asked the people what they wanted him to do, and then they chose son #2... I, in contrast, tend to think that Aaron was indeed the oldest, which is why the people wanted to choose him to be their king. But Ammon apparently had the aggressiveness and/or charisma and/or leadership qualities and/or whatever else that he just sort of naturally took charge of situations. FWIW, my own opinion is that the Nephites looked at the "land of Nephi" in historic terms. Sure, it was Lamanite territory, but for them is was "the land of our fathers' first inheritance". That Nephites no longer lived there didn't lessen the area's historical and religious importance to them.

The same-name thing can be a problem. The good news is that Mormon is a skilled narrator and editor, and if you're careful, it's really not too hard to keep the various characters straight.

Different Ammon, a full generation apart. I like to think that king Mosiah was so impressed with Ammon (I) that he named a son after him. Mosiah's sons became close buddies to Alma's son Alma (Jr.), and I'm guessing the younger Alma was born a few years before the kerfluffle with Amulon (overseeing Alma's people being taken into bondage, who then miraculously escape and found their way to Zarahemla).

Ammon having a disarming manner is a favorite joke in the Vort household.

I've always assumed that Cockney rhyming slang is best used when the rhyming slang bears some relation to the thing being referenced. A sarcastic, negative association (like "trouble and strife" meaning "wife") would be gold. Is this the case?

No. The first year of the judges means the year that the judges started ruling. (Or possibly the 365 days starting from the day the judges were installed, but that seems less likely. In either case, the wording precludes it being before the ruling of the judges.) Mosiah remained the titular king and probably helped immensely in the transition, but the judges were in place and issuing rulings when Mosiah's son's left for Lamanite lands.

"Missions caries" are those elders and sisters in need of dental care.

BTW, Google's AI "Bard" says that it was the 1962 movie The King and the Concubine. From the description of the movie, I think Bard got it right.

It's unlikely you could translate a pun across languages, especially across vastly different languages separated by millennia. If you want to provide some simple humor in a pun, you really have to just do it in the language used and hope the audience will understand that the point is not the linguistic operation of the pun, but just the idea that someone's joking around with a friend. I do remember one quite good pun in a movie I saw many years ago. (I had thought it was the 1980s movie The Last Emperor, but ChatGPT suggests it was the 1998 film The Emperor and the Assassin. I don't think that's right, because I'm pretty sure I saw it before 1998, and I know I saw The Last Emperor but don't remember ever having seen a movie called The Emperor and the Assassin. In any case...) In the movie, the Chinese emperor had died or been killed or something, and his generals decided to replace him with a look-alike peasant so that they could continue pursuing their objectives. In their planning, they realize that the peasant has no horsemanship skills, and they needed to keep the secret from the stablehands. One general suggested that they tell the stablehands that the royal physician had said that "the emperor must not ride". They then turned to the more delicate and problematic difficulty of keeping the ruse from the emperor's concubines. After pondering the problem, a general looked up and the others and said, "The royal physician has said that the emperor must not ride!" The humor was a bit bawdy, but I remember even at the time thinking how clever it was to find a pun that would span centuries in completely different languages.

A Prius is a hybrid, right? I could use that right about now. In the People's Democratic Republic of Washington, we're paying just under $5 per gallon for the tank filler.

@mirkwood's going to have a lot of fun with that.

Following the example of "Books of Mormon", I'm going to say "Batsman".

Talk to me after this life. I think I might be able to help you out.

Let me point out that what we say in this forum is not necessarily representative of what we say at Church or among Saints in the flesh. On this forum, an opinion/conversation/discussion forum, I am willing to voice ideas and viewpoints in explicit and blunt terms that I would be hesitant to do in a casual, friendly meeting of a group of Saints (e.g. an elders quorum party) and would probably refuse to do at church. In my experience, blaming lack of attendance or participation on mean things said at Church is usually an excuse rather than a legitimate complaint. Such supposed offenses are often much lighter than represented or even non-existent. I can think of many examples through the years. I can also think of examples of people who really were treated offensively and who stuck it out. Sadly, I can think of a few where the offense, though not intended (or not intended quite as taken), did cause a rift. But that is the small minority of cases. Even in my own extended family, those who claim being offended are normally just looking for a reason to avoid taking responsibility. Frankly, I find it almost refreshing when a cousin or niece simply says she doesn't want to come to Church any more rather than look around for lame reasons to put the blame elsewhere.

"Spirit" etymologically embodies the idea of breath; Adam's spirit was "the breath of life" that God breathed into him. God's breath is life. God is Spirit, and his breath fills us with his spirit. We ourselves are literally his spirit insofar as we are the spirit children of the Father. It is my opinion that in this epistle, John is talking about various influences on us, including (maybe especially) ideas that we have, and is calling them "spirits" in the sense of inspiration (meaning literally "to breathe in" or "to inhale"). How do we tell which thoughts or inspirations come from God—in the vernacular of certain of our Christian cousins, which are "God-breathed"? John then clarifies that those "spirits" that teach the fundamental truths of the gospel are the spirits/inspirations/breathings of God.