The fact that this quality cannot be named does not mean that it is vague or imprecise. It is impossible to name because it is unerringly precise. Words fail to capture it because it is more precise than any word. The quality itself is sharp, exact, with no looseness in it whatsoever. But each word you chose to capture it has fuzzy edges and extensions which blur the central meaning of the quality.
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, 1979, p. 29, and his enigmatic proposal that well-designed buildings and town must exhibit “the quality without a name.”
