In the first nine pages of Henry Hitchings' The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English,
words can see. (They are "witnesses.") They are containers (with
fossils in them). Language is a combination of earth and artifact. (It
allows us to do archeology.) It is both abstract and communal. (It is a
"social energy.") English is an object of trade. (It was "imported.")
It is an animal. (It has a "pedigree.") It is a human professional. (It
has a "career.") It is a space ("a place of strange meetings"). English
vocabulary is a building (it has architecture), and English has sex,
lots of it—it's not just "promiscuous"; it's a "whore"… Slate.
