ABSTRACT
In 1951, Suzanne Langer “wrote of the restriction on discourse that sets bounds to the complexity of speakable ideas” (cited in Daly, 1973, p. 152). Daly responded to Langer’s concern that our language is a “repository of faded metaphors” (p. xix) by exploring the notion that we have lost sense of the nature of metaphor. Daly’s interpretation is that metaphor is inherently a feminine linguistic dynamic, that along with other “pseudo-propositions” has been cast by patriarchal religious institutions and practices into the lot of that which is called silence. She challenged us to engage in what she called “Webster Work” (p. xxiii), which I see as the creative reinterpretation and reconstruction of language use that does not serve the purpose of expressing anything but that which has already been taken for granted as being true. Doing such Webster Work, we may begin to once again see the colors of Langer’s faded metaphors, as well as naming into being new ones. This power to name is the power to call into being. Indigenous earth-based cultures have always practiced this knowledge, and even today persons and buildings, dogs and automobiles are given names that allude to a particular reality that is bestowed on that entity. From the time of naming, all those who knowingly engage with the name (as the entities become identified with the name) will take for granted all sorts of assumptions about the nature of its being. In that sense, naming begins the conversation.
