Staying with words, the Quaker writer Jennifer Kavanagh has talked to us about an anomaly in English which annoys her. We’ll let Jennifer explain -
'In French they have vivre and habiter; in German leben and wohnen. In English, an immensely rich language, we have suppressed the distinction. In current usage is only the verb to live. No distinction between being alive on the one hand and dwelling/abiding on the other, as if being alive depended on being contained within four walls.
'"Where do you live?": a mainstay of introductory conversation. But I live here and now, no matter where. Why do we define identity by an address, with all the deprivation that its absence implies? The vote, access to credit, public libraries.
I have an address therefore I am? I think not.'