Do you ever think about what words really mean compared to what they mean based on how we use them? Every once in a while, I do. I think it's because I like learning new languages, and when you learn new languages you have to think about what the words mean much more than you do in your own native language.
Take for instance the word return. We use it in every day language to mean something like "come back." But if you think about it re usually means "again" and turn means something like "change direction." So return should mean to "change direction again." If you imagine someone walking and they turned right, and then they turned right again - they would be coming back. So they would be returning. And that's pretty much how we think of meaning of the word return. But it doesn't really mean that does it? What if they turned right, and then turned left? The second turn would be changing direction again, which would be re-turning, but they wouldn't be going back the way they came, they'd be going the way they started in the first place.
Or while we're talking about turning, what about the word right? I already used it and you know what I meant by the context I used it in. But would you know what I mean by the sentence: "That's right."? I could mean that someone just said something that was correct. Or I could be referring to a particular direction. What if I said "That's his right?" I could still be referring to a particular direction. Or I could be saying that he is allowed to (or not to) do or say something. If I don't tell you more about the situation, you would have no idea which meaning is right. =) We call these words homonyms. We should call them confusowords!
I wonder if a language was invented that really had a different word for every meaning, what it would be like...or even if it would be possible to invent such a language. Is there any language like that? Wouldn't that be a better language to explain things since there would be no chance of ambiguity? Or would the types of sounds we can make with our mouths and voices so limited that we couldn't possibly create a totally new word for enough meanings to be able to communicate effectively?
Maybe rather than making a totally new language, we could just identify a few languages that give us enough different sounds and words that we could explain anything without ambiguity if we just use the right word from the right language to best suit the meaning we're trying to get across. Then if we all learned those languages, we could all communicate with everyone else in the world with no misunderstandings. That would be cool. Probably impossible, but still pretty cool.
