Lent Day 9 "Words"

I have started preparing to take the GRE.  I am writing for Lent.  I have seen 4-5 different notations or requests or bemusements about the changing of word meanings, whether that be denotative or connotative. Perhaps Eliza Doolittle said/ sang it best, "Words, words, words! / I'm so sick of words/ I get words all day through/ first from him/ now from you/ is that all you blighters can do?"

Who was the first caveman or -woman to point at something, grunt, and then decide that that specific grunt would be the same grunt, always, for fire, or mastadon, or "you idiot, that sabre-toothed thingy is about to eat you"?  Words are a bit like currency.  The only value that they have is what a group of people has decided to give them.

What got me onto this thought is the box of 500 vocabulary word flash cards for GRE vocabulary.  So far, I have seen many of the words in use, and know/ knew what they mean when I have read them in a sentence.  But most of the time, I have a hard time coming up with a denotative definition.  Perhaps this says more about my learning style than it says about my understanding of vocabulary, but on a test where I won't always have context into which to put these words, it is helpful for me to look at what those words mean in their purest definition.  I have also found a couple of words which I have been using inappropriately for many years.  Whoops.