In the novel “1984”, one observation was that, by eliminating words with which to describe a concept, you eliminate the ability to THINK the concept.
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I used to believe this but I’ve done nearly a 180 on it. Not only do I believe that it’s very possible to conceptualize without specific words, I feel that giving a word to a concept crystallizes it in a way that often limits the concept, particularly to the way that the word gets used most repeatedly. The concept is no longer pure, but it is easier to remember, and much much easier to communicate.
Words are shortcuts to communication. If we had to use new words in every sentence while we were having a conversation, we would have to stop and expend many many sentences clarifying the meaning of the new word, and the conversation would take forever to proceed. If we were able to communicate telepathically we learn to do with without words and tranceive the images and feelings of concepts, not only would conversations be much faster, but there would be a great deal more clarity.
So when you eliminate a word, you’re not eliminating the ability to THINK about it, but you are very very much limiting the ability to get others to THINK about it.
I agree wholeheartedly.
It’s often we have an intuition but we do not have words to convey that thought to others [think “silent majority”].
Also, there are cases where words to convey our thoughts to to others are forbidden words...