com · mu · ni · ca · tion
five syllables – count them up
you must choose wisely
words have an economy
to buy and sell war or peace
Language is also built for economy of vocabulary. We don’t have one word for one thing. Most of the time, we use a handful of words in different combinations to point roughly at the thing we want to say, hoping or assuming that the person we are talking to has enough common points of reference with us that they will select the correct meaning of those words out of all the possible meanings that are available. (The charge of the light brigade was caused by two different commanders being able to see two different gun emplacements from their different vantage points. Neither could see the ambiguity. And in battle, communication has to work in real time.)
defying atrophy 