Why you understand more than words
Distilling Books - Number 23
Welcome to Mental Garden. The following letter is part of our “Distilling Books” collection, in which we extract the most revealing ideas from literature. For the complete library, click here.
🏷️ Categories: Social relationships.
Words never tell the whole story.
We discover this in our relationships when you say “I’m fine” and the other person hears “I’m hurting,” or you say “it doesn’t matter” and what’s understood is “of course it matters.” Without fail. Human language doesn’t fit in a dictionary because there is a shared interpretation. And two scientists, Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, showed that this is exactly what makes us human.
Understanding is not decoding a message.
It is inferring.
Language is not a code: it is a signal.
Scientists have spent decades trying to explain how on earth we understand so much when the words themselves say so little.
Sperber and Wilson put it this way: “Interpretation starts from a linguistic meaning that is fragmentary and incomplete.” We don’t hear a sentence and automatically grasp the message; rather, we hear it and our brain completes it, fills gaps, adds context, integrates our experience with the person and their non-verbal cues.
And all of this happens in milliseconds.
That’s why these two sentences, identical in vocabulary, do not mean the same thing:
Antonio got angry and Laura left.
Laura left and Antonio got angry.
In the first, Laura flees the anger; in the second, it seems Antonio reacts negatively when she leaves. Nothing in the dictionary explains that difference.
We create it.
And here’s where the scientists strike gold: human language is not encoded.
There is no 1-to-1 relationship between each sound and its meaning. There are countless words with multiple meanings and meanings that can be expressed with countless words. In other words: language is a many-to-many relationship, not 1-to-1.
Human language does not transmit exact definitions: it transmits clues.
The key is not the words but their relevance
Here a revolutionary idea comes into play: Relevance Theory.
Sperber and Wilson propose two principles:
The human mind seeks to maximize the relevance of the message.
Every message creates in the receiver the expectation of being relevant.
Meaning: when someone speaks to you, you pay attention to find valuable clues.
What does this imply?
We understand messages because the brain searches for meaning and valuable clues, even where nothing is fully said or defined. That’s why you can arrive in a country whose language you don’t speak and still find your hotel room and communicate with people: you didn’t understand the words, but you understood the intention, the gestures, the tone, the context…
You never receive 1-to-1 code—only clues that encourage you to infer what matters.
Knowing a language simply means knowing a new set of clues, but even without knowing any, you can communicate. We all understand that if someone points at an object with their finger, they are giving a clue that something relevant is happening there. To the wise, few words are needed.
But we can take it a step further and even play with the clues themselves…
Irony: the perfect example that you say more than the words you use.
Irony is the best example of why you say more than your words.
The classical definition of irony is “saying the opposite,” but that’s insufficient. Sperber and Wilson proved this: “What irony communicates is neither the literal proposition nor its opposite, but an attitude toward that proposition and toward those who hold it.”
What does this mean? Read on.
When Laura leaves a boring party and says, “How fun,” she’s not just stating that the party was bad. She’s rejecting the shared social expectation that she was supposed to enjoy that event. She conveys boredom, emotional distance, and perhaps even mockery. And the best part: she does it by saying the opposite of what she means.
And here something fascinating happens that proves you understand more than words:
You can’t be ironic with a robot.
You can’t be ironic if you don’t share context.
You can’t be ironic with someone who can’t see your non-verbal cues or tone.
Irony proves that we communicate far more with attitude than with words.
The conclusion is beautiful.
Words matter less than we think, but their interpretation matters far more than we imagine. Human language is powerful precisely because it is not closed, because it always leaves space for the listener to complete the meaning. When you say “stay,” what you convey is not the word—it is the vulnerability behind it.
And the person who hears you is not processing a code: they are interpreting your feelings.
That’s why language is not just the dictionary.
That’s why writing well is not just putting words together.
That’s why a poem is not just words that rhyme.
And that’s why an “I love you” carries far more meaning than two words.
Want to learn more? Here are 3 related ideas to go deeper:
✍️ Your turn: What non-verbal signals do you tend to give without realizing it, and what story do they tell about you before you even speak?
💭 Quote of the day: “ ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ” —Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.
See you next time! 👋
References 📚
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2012). Meaning and Relevance.