175: Why Aren’t There More Words?

I understand that the English language has lots of words.  Lots!   Far more than a mere dog like me can remember.  

Yet, on too many occasions, it seems we need some more…. The same word has to be re-used with different meanings.

Here is an example.  My beans got a new kitchen gadget.  TOWTLH, being the smart one - and the one that bothers to read instruction manuals -  worked out how to use it and then said to TOWTSH, “I’ll give you a demonstration.”

Then only about ten minutes later on the 6 o’clock television news, I heard the presenter (no, not that presenter splashed namelessly all over the front pages of the newspapers) talking about a group of people, going under the rather odd name of ‘Just Stop Oil, holding a demonstration at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. 

Now, as far as I could tell,  they have no kitchen gadgets - or other gadgets - to show the world.  They were clearly not showing how something worked.  Yet they used that same word ‘demonstration’. 

Can’t those in charge of the English language prevent such duplication and confusion?

My suggestion is that the ‘demonstration’ in the first case is renamed as a ‘show-how’.   

There.  Not too difficult was it?  If a dog can solve such a problem, why can’t the  best human minds just sit down to form an anti-duplication committee and iron things out (there, another duplication) in a few short months?