If a word can have as many meanings as we assign to it; can we assign every meaning to one word?

Smurf yeah we can.

Smurfing hell... I thought I was going to be the smartass in this thread.

Marklar

Edit: I just have to bitch about a stupid website called GIFer that uses mp4 not gif... Stupid.
- Some of these GIF hosts can be pretty obtuse. I was able to get at this GIF by going to the embed page and clicking/tapping the "copy link" button. In this case, the only difference in the two URLs was the file extension.
Marklar yea, marklar.

Aladeen

☹️😐🙂😐☹️😐🙂

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
- I saw a mechanic throw down a wrench and shout "the fuck-fucking fucker's fucking fucked AGAIN" and we all knew the deadline needed a push.
- You've certainly shown the diversity of the word.
- mother-motherfuck
  mother-motherfuck-fuck
  motherfuck, motherfuck,
  Noinch noinch noinch.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCNH-0CBfr8

Gary, Gary... Gary?

Professional academic linguist here. (Yes, that's a thing.)

Words have the meanings that communities apply to them. There is no governing body over word meanings. There can be a tension (e.g. two groups using the same term in different ways), but that doesn't really mean that the word means both. Words mean different things to different groups. It has to be this way, for epistemic and pragmatic reasons.

In that sense, meanings are not consciously assigned. So the answer to your original question could be "no".

But in another sense, all meanings are possible for any given meaningful sequence around the world. Which means, in principle, given infinite communities of practice, a word could have infinite meanings. A stretch, of course.

Edit:

There is no governing body over word meanings

I'm speaking here in terms of global English. There are some languages that have governing bodies, or at least bodies that claim to be governing bodies, like French with the Académie Française. But this is not at all the norm.

Or, to put it another way, (unprofessional academic linguist here), a word has meanings by what you mean by it, and what the listener understands it to mean.
In a sense, it can mean anything you want it to. In another sense, it can mean anything the listener/reader interprets it as. Most useful though is when you mean the same meaning that the listener understands.
And for "accepted/official meaning", that's just a community all agreeing on a meaning. Optionally with a recognised group (e.g. dictionary writer) affirming certain meanings as accepted in the community.
- I think you're getting at intended meaning versus received meaning. Which is totally a thing, but intended meaning is far less well understood than accepted meaning (not necessarily at the word level, but definitely at the sentence level).
  At the sentence level, companies pay big money to have tens of thousands of sentences manually annotated for intended meaning (to try and train AI to be able to discern it automatically).
Professional academic linguist
🧐
- It means I'm not a translator and I don't work on one particular language (which is typically termed as an academic linguist), but I'm also based in industry.

Not really. A word with every meaning is meaningless itself, since it doesn't allow you to narrow down the word's intended meaning from the set of all possible meanings.

[audience looks around] 'What just happened?' 'There must be some context we're missing.'

I am groot.

I am Groot.

Yes, literally.

sounds skibidi

You seem to be looking for the word fuck.

Theoretically, yes. In practice, no. Suppose bla becomes a everything word. If anyone asks what bla means, you say it means bla. The other person won't understand, you persist on bla bla bla meaning bla means bla, by which bla can mean anything and you realize that it just doesn't work, because if it "means anything", in reality it means nothing.

"Dude"

Sweeeet

You sure as squantch can!

Came here looking for this
My squantch in squantch you can't squantch that in public.

ACK! ACK ACK ACK ACK. ACK ACK.

He comes in peace!

Smurf.

The simple answer to your question is no. Language is as much about distinction and exclusion as it is about description. The word "circle" stands for the description and properties of the circle, but would be incoherent if it did not also exclude straight lines.

You can often find examples where some things are considered premium or desirable not for the properties is has, but for what it lacks. Just think of all the products marketed to not have something like BPA, fat, sugar, Carbs, gluten, asbestos, lead, and even cruelty.

fnord

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

The association between meaning and word is arbitrary, but socially dictated. You'd need to have other people accepting that that word conveys that meaning in at least some context.

That's what the word "aught" means. Literally "anything at all."

Dragon's Dogma really loves using it for just about any meaning, too, which is why I had to look it up lol

That's "jawn" in Philly. It can stand in for literally any object. "These jawns are expensive" "Make a left at the jawn" "Jawn said he ain't coming" "This jawn is packed"
- every time I see a transplant refer to an animate object as jawn they get mocked raucously by the phillyborn
I aught aught that aught I?

Yes

Than*

Let me introduce you to Goptjaam, probably the closest "language" that fits what you mean: https://youtu.be/ze5i_e_ryTk

There's a sci-fi movie from USSR, "Kin-dza-dza". The natives of another planet in another galaxy were telepathes, but used language consisting of only a few words. "Koo" was for almost any word, "kiu" for swearing, "ketse" for matches (most valuable asset) and a few more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin-dza-dza!

I thought we did this with buffalo

Buffalo, buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo bufalo buffalo? Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
- Watermelon.

Ook.

May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?

I love it when you talk dirty!
- Dude you got it wrong this is mental advice they're asking for

Correct me if I'm old, but isn't this kinda what gen Z is doing with skibidi?

It's so fetch.

Hoogla!

Chicken.

I mean, I don't think it's very likely that you could get a critical mass of people to go along with it

Yeah here and AskLemmy get so many replies I’ve sadly had to abandon a few posts due to the sheer number of replies. I really like to reply to everybody that takes the time to comment but in swear I’ve had posts with 400+ comments and I feel overwhelmed.