Play is not only useful (and pleasant); it is also risky; playing with fire can burn down the house. So safety measures are typically in place to protect players from risk. One is confining play within restricted, isolated areas: the playground, the laboratory, vacation time. Another is shifting play to substitute things: toy cars and guns instead of real ones. The most extensive and successful arena for substitute play is language, whose powerful and subtle articulation allows for mimicking complex situations and vicariously exploring them without encountering too many real dangers. Language is not, therefore, primarily or even importantly, a means of communication (as it is taken to be by a long tradition that goes from AristotleAristotle to de SaussureDe Saussure, Ferdinand and beyond) but, primarily and essentially, a field of play. “Description” of a reality in language, when it is worth anything, is the conjuring up of it; and the quality of the language is crucially involved in this operation, in that the reality will be believed, and people will want to live in it, depending on how engaging and fascinating the language is that “describes” it. A good example of this is Galileo, whom both EinsteinEinstein, Albert and Stephen Hawking called the father of the new science, not because he was unique at his time as a brilliant mathematician, physicist, or astronomer (which he wasn’t) or because he made no serious mistakes (which he did), but because his beautiful prose presented the “new science” as a thrilling, enchanting adventure and inspired readers to take part in it.