The language we use to understand ourselves and our world is not simply a matter of words. It is the result of the interactions of many other factors: the particular social pressures to which we are subject; patterns of behaviour into which we have settled; how our collective life is shaped politically; how our most deeply felt anxieties and perplexities are understood; how we conceive of our gender and ethnic differences; how we relate to our things, to the past, to ourselves, and most fundamentally, to God. In this sense, our everyday language is the outcome of our engagement with life at very deep, complex and sometimes painful levels.