The human drive to give everything a name comes off as more than a little bit anal, yet, without the ability to convey the essence of an object, it seems like, for practical reasons, the naming of things will have to persist. Indeed, how else would I tell you that I love apples, ask if you’ve met my friend, Barry, or tell you it was cloudy when I went skiing? In the sense that names foster familiarity with objects, the words, which symbolize their real-world referents, can be seen as assuaging our all-too-common fear of the unknown. This is, of course, to fall back on the cliché knowledge is power. While there’s no doubt the phrase has lost much of its symbolic meaning to overuse and cultural proliferation, there is a certain truth in the notion that knowing one 's own feelings renders them more able to address or change those feelings. This can be seen in the difference between the statements “I am sad.” and “I am sad because…” or “I am frustrated.” and “I am frustrated that…”. In both cases, the latter statements offer some avenue of exploration, whereas the former are generally terminal. It is the benefits that arise from accurately labeling human emotion, and the realization that there exist emotions for which we don’t have words in the English language, that makes Emily Elert’s article on the “21 Emotions for which there are no English Words” such a compelling piece.
