The mystery of language …

… Walker Percy Ponders the Joy and Risk of Naming the World | The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The other strange thing about language is that while it gives things an initial identity, it also obscures that identity over time. When Helen Keller learned the word for “water” in the example above she became aware of a distinctness the stuff hadn’t possessed for her until that moment (not that it was without any distinctness before). The problem is that the repeated use of the word swallows the thingness of water so that it is nearly lost. Language, Percy writes, “operates not only as a means of knowing but also as a means of concealment.” Objects can become “encrusted by a symbolic simulacrum”—a simulacrum that can only be broken (temporarily) by accident or art.