One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word ‘I.’
Language
Ordinary language carries with it conditions of meaning which it is easy to recognize by classifying the contexts in which the expression is employed in a meaningful manner.
There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.
Why, der language down dar in de far South is jus’ as different from ours in Maryland, as you can think. Dey laughed when dey heard me talk, an’ I could not understand ‘dem, no how.
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
My language and my sensibility are yearning to admit a kind of religious or transcendent dimension. But then there’s the reality: there’s no Heaven, no afterlife of the sort we were promised, and no personal God.
God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.
The German language speaks Being, while all the others merely speak of Being.
Language just gradually came in, one or two stressed words a time. Before then, I would just scream. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t get my words out. So the only way I could tell someone what I wanted was to scream. If I didn’t want to wear a hat, the only way I knew to communicate was screaming and throwing it on the floor.
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.