All language is on a scale from strong to insipid, with most of it at the insipid end.

I’ve been chewing on this idea for something like 30 years. See here for some of the questions raised by the theme, from the Introduction to an earlier draft.

Strong language is language that says what it’s like, comes off the page, brings it into the room. That evokes, is redolent, hits the spot. In a phrase that goes back to Aristotle, that has poetic truth. (This isn’t the usual meaning of ‘strong language’, but for clarification and some honourable precedents click here.) And, though scarce, strong language is everywhere, infusing human life at its funkiest and its highest.

We can’t avoid philosophy here, especially that of Martin Heidegger. A controversial figure, but without Heidegger strong language lacks the grounding it needs. ‘Poetic truth’, the main previous try for a philosophical term, sounds like an add-on to language rather than its primary condition.

I contend that there is no available account of strong language that does it justice. That has proper regard for the range and depth of its place in our lives. Heidegger’s chronic elitism levers it upstairs, to a high-flown selection of Greek and German poets. What is needed is a garage Heidegger, a strip-down to basic insights with the discarding of his mythic overlay. I attempt such a strip-down, backed by some observations on the natural history of strength and insipidity.

I hope to finish the book by the end of 2023.