English as a Philosophically Inexact Language

Another fascinating conversation with Dr. von Hildebrand revolved around the fact that English is fundamentally a philosophically inexact language.  She affirmed that while English places a large vocabulary at the disposal of its speakers, it does not contain substantially different terms for important philosophical terms like love (we always read of the three Latin verbs that help us distinguish "pizza love" from "love of God"), shame, or to know.  Thus, she said philosophy is much easier to practice and write on in German or French (or even Spanish and Italian at times) than English.  This is why some great works of philosophy and theology (like her husband's books) take so long to be published in America.  Let's look at some examples she brings up:

TO KNOW
Spanish contains two verbs in place of our one: "saber" & "conocer".  Dr. von Hildebrand says that this distinction makes it much easier to know if the writer is speaking of a factual knowledge of something or a deeper, interpersonal relationship.  Without this distinction, those two types of knowledge seem to be on metaphysically equal or ambiguous footing, while nothing could be further from the truth.

SHAME
In French, there are two words for this.  The first (I don't remember the terms) is used when one has done something filthy and they should be embarrassed.  The second is a type of "shame" that protects that which is secret and hidden in order to preserve its mystery.  Dr. von Hildebrand says that our combination of the terms tends to default to the former connotation.  Thus, when we read the Genesis account and then talk about modesty, there is a tendency to sound Puritanical--we have "shame" for our bodies and therefore keep them covered.  She refutes this misunderstanding by saying that "my body is my secret," thus, I veil it appropriately as something mysterious (the second meaning of shame).  This attitude protects the intimate sphere and preserves its beauty and profound interpersonal significance; otherwise, if our body is something we should be ashamed of, the whole intimate sphere suddenly seems to be "dirty."

[Ok, so after bashing the English language a bit, I had to honor it with a picture of the full Oxford English Dictionary set--the online version is a beautiful thing and has helped me to win many arguments about the denotation, connotation, and etymology of various words!]