It is really interesting how humans communicate if you think about it: I have a thought, I look in a dictionary that I have created out of my life

experience, I map the thought onto the dictionary, I make the requisite small mouth noises, they cross physical space, they enter your ear and you instantaneously consult the culturally sanctioned dictionary and you construct a map of my linguistic content, and your dictionary is different from my dictionary, but if we speak what we call ‘the same language’ it will be close enough that you will ‘sort of’ understand what I mean. Now if I don’t say to you, ‘what do I mean?’ you and I will go gaily off in the assumption that we understand each other. And through a series of grunts and nods, we assure each other that we know what we mean. But if I say to you “do you understand what I meant then” you say “yes, you meant that you don’t want to sit with Harry and Sally because their pending divorce makes you uncom”—I say “no, that’s not that I meant: I meant—” So there’s misunderstanding because the dictionaries are not matched.