thanks, Bingley; the noun has, of course [d'oh], been verbed.

the book has been epigraphed thusly:

1) the Borgmann quote given above
2) "Without effort, he had learned English, French, Portuguese, Latin. I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details." (Jorge Luis Borges, Funes, the Memorious) http://www.bridgewater.edu/~atrupe/GEC101/Funes.html
3) "Words, words, words. I'm so sick of words!" (Elliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady)

so, what does this epigraph(s) (this is why I was searching for the concept) suggest as a central tenet of the book?