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i don't understand the formulation of either sentence:
When we name or label something we take away some qualities.
or
When something is given a label the true essence is lost.
because both seem to presuppose some knowledge of the things themselves that's extra-linguistic (the second)...the first is less problematic, but seems a banality simply because a name is a category so a generality that groups according to certain commonalities. categories don't account for all commonalities. and the general does not account for the specific.
the most explicit walk-through of these kind of problems i know of is in husserl's transcendental phenomenology. there, the project was about getting to a level of certainty as to the meaning of categories; the procedure (the reductions) built in a phase of constructing the commonalities (edetic variation).
but i'm not sure that's what you're looking for. is it?
there are other versions of the statements you have that are more well-formed. the one that jumps to my mind is from wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus. i'll try to locate it and paste it up when i find it (i'm at work and have stuff to do at the moment)...
hope this helps.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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