Just this morning I listened to a radiolab podcast: "the wordless place", which talks about how a word puts something in a category, and that doing this can tak

Just this morning I listened to a radiolab podcast: "the wordless place", which talks about how a word puts something in a category, and that doing this can take living concepts and turn them dead, like putting a firefly in a jar without air. It makes reference to something named the Zeigarnik effect - for remembering unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks, and it analogizes this to the ability to better remember a phenomenon in its detail and nuance and contextual connection better when you don't have a word for it. In this case, putting a word to worry is used as a good and effective way to stop worry, which is an angle that had not occurred to me.