If we cannot conceive of a concept or thing, then do we need a word for it?

I believe that a concept or thing that is not tangible is hard to describe through words. For example: Love, love is intangible therefore to describe love there is nothing to look at, there is nothing to compare it to. Many feelings are good examples of concepts or things that really have to correct description for their given word. Feelings are very subjective therefore not allowing for a correct description.

The other side of this is that if you are unable to conceive of a concept or thing why should there be a word for it? For example if somebody isn’t able to conceive the idea of separation, they may not feel it is necessary for there to be a word for it.  However, to explain a concept or thing that is unconceivable for some but, conceivable for others there should be a word for it, this is because if the actual concept is one that is growing to not have a word for it would confuse people more.

I believe that many people choose to neglect the concepts they don’t understand because they don’t believe they should give importance to the things they don’t understand but, if there was a word for it and people started using it, it would perhaps encourage others to figure out what it means. This making the concept that was previously unconceivable by some,  develop into something everyone understands or has an idea of what it is.

In the earlier days if people didn’t make a word for concepts they didn’t believe or didn’t understand there wouldn’t be any languages or complex conversation between humans because we wouldn’t have almost all of the words in the dictionary. Every language has ideas and concepts that many previously weren’t able to conceive but through complex thinking and learning (something humans are very good at), the languages were further  developed and widened. Therefore, I believe that even if you don’t understand a concept you should still start developing words for it to better explain the concept.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply