> [!note] New — 2026-03-19 ![[assets/covers/thickened-language.jpg]] Thickened language is Gerald Bray’s term for the register of liturgical prayer: language with more body and depth than everyday speech, without tipping into pomposity or self-importance. The liturgy is not meant to sound like normal conversation, and this is intentional: worship is serious business, and its language should carry that weight. The thickness comes primarily from age – the church has consistently worshipped in a register older than the current vernacular. ## The defence of the archaic From the time of Christ to the present, churches have tended to worship in language older than what is spoken in everyday settings: hearers of the Psalms in Hebrew would have encountered a classical form of the language, and this pattern has persisted through Latin and into the vernacular traditions.[^bray-bcp-p5] The Vulgate did not entirely replace the older Latin translation in the liturgy; more strikingly, the King James Version was intentionally old-fashioned on the day it was published.[^bray-bcp-p6] > [!quote] > ‘The King James Version was intended to be old-fashioned on the day it was published.’ > > *How to Use the Book of Common Prayer*, p. 6 This argument moved me. And yet it raises an obvious counter-point: at some point, all of these registers were contemporary. ‘Thickened’ is not simply a synonym for ‘old’; it describes a quality of resonance and weight that must have been present from the beginning – the words were new once, and the thickness came from what they named, not from the patina of age. The best case for liturgical language is not that it is archaic but that it has been worn smooth by generations of genuine prayer, and that smoothness is what makes it load-bearing.[^bray-bcp-p5b] ## Selected passages > ‘The language of the liturgy is meant to be “thickened” language, with more body and depth than everyday language, but without being pompous or self-important.’ > > *How to Use the Book of Common Prayer*, p. 5 ## Appearances - *How to Use the Book of Common Prayer*, Gerald Bray, Ch. 1 ‘Why Liturgy?’, pp. 5–6 ## Related [[Liturgical Prayer]] · [[Freedom Through Form]] [^bray-bcp-p5]: [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer]], p. 5 · *‘The language of the liturgy is meant to be “thickened” language, with more body and depth than everyday language, but without being pompous or self-important (like the language of the Pharisee in Matthew 6:5).’ · [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer - 12.jpg|↗]] [^bray-bcp-p6]: [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer]], p. 6 · *‘the Vulgate did not completely replace the older Latin translation in the liturgy. And the King James Version was intended to be old-fashioned on the day it was published.’ · [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer - 13.jpg|↗]] [^bray-bcp-p5b]: [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer]], p. 5 · *‘from the time of Christ to the present, churches have tended to worship in language that is older than what is spoken in everyday settings.’ · [[How to Use the Book of Common Prayer - 12.jpg|↗]]