“Why do you have to wear words [on your T-shirt], Milo?”
“Names are important.”
“These aren’t names.” [courage, persist, seek, freedom, relentless]
“Every word is a name.”
“How do you figure?”
“Every word names an object, an action, a quality, a quantity, a condition …”
“So, why are names important?”
“Nothing could be more important.”
“But why?”
“Because nothing is if it isn’t named.”
“Names are important.”
“These aren’t names.” [courage, persist, seek, freedom, relentless]
“Every word is a name.”
“How do you figure?”
“Every word names an object, an action, a quality, a quantity, a condition …”
“So, why are names important?”
“Nothing could be more important.”
“But why?”
“Because nothing is if it isn’t named.”
(D. Koontz .. Relentless, 2009)
Or, as Sir Edward Coke said ++100 years before Linneaus: “nomina si nescis perit cognitio rerum” [in Coke upon Littleton 86; If you know not the names of things, the knowledge of things themselves perishes.]
(my collaborator, Terry Erwin, U.S. National Museum, sent the above recently)
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