"'Everyday things represent the most overlooked knowlege. These names are vital to your progress. Quotidian things. If they weren't important, we wouldn't use such a gorgeous Latinate word ... An extraordinary word that suggests the depth and reach of the commonplace'"
-- Father Paulus on page 542

"I wanted to look up words. I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them , learn them, pronounce them syllable by syllable--vocalize, phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth. This is the only way in the world you can escape the things that made you"
--Nick Shay on p 543

I think DeLillo makes an interesting proposition here with the apostrophe to the reader. Humans enjoy the great advantage of being able to develop of complex language which enables advanced collaborative processes which make civilization possible. At the same time, language makes secrets and layered meaning possible. As a society, ironically things that don't directly affect our lives seem to take precedence often in the form of paranoia and overshadow the basic routines that actually define our existence and identity. Names and words tend to obscure meaning, so through Nick, DeLillo suggests that by learning to understand language fully, people can free themselves from the man-made systems that confine them. DeLillo extends this principle throughout the novel to the idea of waste and garbage which in and of themselves constitute a language which while hidden in landfills everywhere will tell the truth when someone actively searches through them.