translated into our tongue,
it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek
tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the
properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the
English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one; so that
in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the
English word for word; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and
yet shalt have much work to translate it well-favoredly, so that it have
the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in
the Latin, and as it hath in the Hebrew."[199] The implication that the
English version might possess the "grace and sweetness" of the Hebrew
original suggests that Tyndale was not entirely unconscious of the charm
which his own work possessed, and which it was to transmit to later
renderings.

The questions most definitely discussed by those concerned in the
translation of the Bible were questions of vocabulary. Primarily most of
these discussions centered around points of doctrine and were concerned
as largely with the meaning of the word in the original as with its
connotation in English. Yet though not in their first intention
linguistic, these discussions of necessity had their bearing on the
general problems debated by rhetoricians of the day and occasionally
resulted in definite comment on English usage, as when, for example,
More says: "And in our English tongue this word senior signifieth
nothing at all, but is a French word used in English more than half in
mockage, when one will call another my lord in scorn." With the
exception of Sir John Cheke few of the translators say anything which
can be construed as advocacy of the employment of native English words.
Of Cheke's attitude there can, of course, be no doubt. His theory is
thus described by Strype: "And moreover, in writing any discourse, he
would allow no words, but such as were pure English, or of Saxon
original; suffering no adoption of any foreign word into the English
speech, which he thought was copious enough of itself, without borrowing
words of other countries. Thus in his own translations into English, he
would not use any but pure English phrase and expression, which indeed
made his style here and there a little affected and hard: and forced him
to use sometimes odd and uncouth words."[200] His Biblical translation
was a conscious attempt at carrying out these ideas