It is interesting that academics often create new words (usually from Greek roots in English academics) to explain a concept or train of thought. Nearly always these are an amalgam of two words that bring together two disciplines – it replaces the old hyphened words we used to find a great deal of in academic essays and books, pseudo-this and psycho-that. It may be Theology is more prone to this than other studies, I am not sure.
Choosing that precise word that gets over the exact meaning, is of course, what a lot of writing is about, but not all. Sometimes it isn’t the words but the feeling that is important. Sometimes they come together as in the brilliant opening thirty pages of Durrell’s Alexandrian Quartet. Of course the exact word makes all the difference in translating into and from other languages.
The language of nature through DNA is proving to be incredibly intricate and precise. The fact that, as I learned today, individual cells contribute to our memories gives one a sense of mind greater than any we have had to date. A long time ago I heard it said that through us the universe can know itself, and only now do I begin to see how heady with meaning that phrase really is. How we are analogous to the cells of our bodies, within the universe itself.
Comedians everywhere are going to enjoy telling audiences to which parts of the Universes’ body they think we belong:)