Inclining the heart: negotiating meaning over time

Liturgy is perhaps above all about language, and many of the ‘issues’ involved in debates about liturgy derive from the fact that living languages change, reflecting – because language is above all a social practice – wider social changes. To illustrate some of the difficulties involved here I have chosen a lexeme that reappears at several points in traditional Anglican liturgy, viz. incline, along with a noun frequently collocated with it, viz. heart.