THE FEAR OF THE INEXPRESSIBLE.—Language doubles: it transforms the physical into the metaphysical, the specific into an instance of the general, the particular case into an abstract idea. Naming marks the creation of an entirely new ontological region that shadows the old one, coextensive yet distinct. Access to this doubled world is what makes transcendence possible, but this access is never total, nor is it ever complete. This is precisely what is so terrifying about the inexpressible. The inexpressible is the sliver of the material that resists all colonisation by signification; it is the remainder par excellence. Greek mathematicians, for instance, were so intimidated by the inexpressible that they did not hit upon the simple solution of making nothingness disappear by assigning it a number.

The Zero And The One: A Novel, Ryan Ruby