Magic

After having a bizarre dream about the meaning of words (the dream had words shedding and changing clothes as their meaning and context changed), I was looking for a way to incorporate it into what I wanted to write and, eventually, I thought I could use it as the basis of how magic works.  This post will be a brief run down of what I'm trying to do with magic in the two main stories I'm working on.

The Fantasy:  I quite liked what George R.R. Martin did with magic, it exists but the world has kind of moved on and many don't really believe in it any more.   In my world, magic exists and the people certainly believe in it, they just don't understand it.  It takes years of study to understand it and even then you've only scratched the surface.  The magic exists as a language, write the words of that language on an item and you can imbue said item with an ability.  However, it's not enough to just write the words, you have to truly understand what they mean, how combining different words can change the meaning, and therefore alter the end result.  Of course, it's one thing to be able to write it, another thing entirely to be able to speak it, something which no-one has ever been able to do, at least so far...

The wizard detective story:  I thought the focus for this could be on names.  I like the idea of hidden names and that if you know somebody's true name you have power over them (Rumpelstiltskin).  I thought I'd focus on why knowing the name gives you power and whether or not the name in itself has power.  I also had the idea that the name changes depending on a persons experiences (sort of the idea that the person we are today is a result of all that we have experienced in our life)..  If mages derive their power from their name then what does that mean for my non-magical detective? Does he have no hidden name?