Hesitating

I still sing the doxology sometimes when I am deeply content. I invoke blessings far more often now than I did when I was a really pious Christian.

I still think disaster will result if I say the wrong words; I still believe the perfect sentences exist that would do exactly what I need them to do, if only I can find them and recognize them...

A vague memory from linguistics that induced me to open an old textbook:

"...knowing a language means being able to produce new sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before." (Fromkin and Rodman)