It's possible you are perceiving more essence to the question than exists. I believe you are lumping two types of meaning and ignoring the vagueness inherent in language use. Assume language is an attempt to classify a more or less shared approximate universe in which there are not always clear distinctions between groups of similar individuals. For convenience in dealing with such a multitude, arbitrary distinctions are accepted to set off arbitrary classes. The distinctions are the defining attributes of a class. Words are created to represent the arbitrary classes. The lexical meaning of a word is the set of attributes that define the class. The pragmatic meaning of a word or phrase depends on how the word or phrase is used and the intent of the user and is not generally available absent the user. A linguistic approach to your question would be to compare the attribute sets of electron and volkswagen. A pragmatic approach would be to demonstrate the difference by juxtaposing an entity from each class.

• At last, someone who understands language? - aurino_s - May 1, 2003 - 12:56 UTC
  • "What I like about the above" - quiet - May 1, 2003 - 17:37 UTC
    • Truth is the sound of one hand clapping - aurino_s - May 1, 2003 - 19:18 UTC
      • So, you're defining truth through metaphor - quiet - May 1, 2003 - 22:18 UTC
        • I'm not defining anything - aurino_s - May 2, 2003 - 13:28 UTC
  • No ambiguity - jetty - May 1, 2003 - 17:50 UTC
    • I'm quite sure that I'm not sure - aurino_s - May 1, 2003 - 19:44 UTC
      • According to DocDick - yaniru - May 2, 2003 - 13:27 UTC
        • According to DD... - aurino_s - May 2, 2003 - 13:31 UTC
          • in my review of his preface and 1st chapter - sagefr0g - May 2, 2003 - 16:30 UTC
            • Actually... - aurino_s - May 2, 2003 - 16:43 UTC
              • really - sagefr0g - May 2, 2003 - 18:59 UTC