Whole books have been focused on the question, "How do words mean?" But word-sounds don't "mean", ever -- in the way most people assume. They believe word-sounds and scribbles are able to DO things, perform actions. How? A scribble, a printed word-sound, is as inert, as passive, as a rock. Yes, a geologist might say the rock's makeup "means" things. He'd almost be ready to say the rock is talking to him. Why not? The sound 'geology' is derived from the Greek for "earth-speech". But rocks don't speak. They do nothing. They are inert. It's the geologist's mind that's at work -- inferring. Same with a word. Except: a word-sound's scrapbook of memories in your mind has more pits, crannies, and crevices than any rock. Cavities where not minerals but memories lodge.
Many people believe the reason words and names are able to do specific things is because of the "meanings" and "referents" and stuff they "have". They assume the alleged "meanings" mean things, indicate, point at things. And that's why we "understand" one another. But that's wrong. "If I read a word, and an idea, a meaning, comes to my mind, it's obvious the word is causing that meaning." No, it's not. The word-sound isn't causing anything. Your brain is. We need to avoid confusing what I'll call a cause with an occasion. Clerics maintain you should avoid "occasions of sin". They tend to be against teenage boys' keeping Hustler Magazine in the bathroom. Diet savants tell us keeping quarts of ice cream in the frig is a no-no. If you break your toe on a rock, you might say the rock broke your toe. Even though the inert rock was innocent. IT DID nothing. It's only the occasion for YOUR doing something. Sidebar tip: People only confuse themselves more if they call something a "cause" when it doesn't move, doesn't act. When you read, there is action going on. We want to say it's the "word" that's doing things. Via the meaning it "has" -- when in fact all the action is by our brains. They're recalling memories connected with those sounds and inky shapes. And a smattering of grammar and syntax. Our brain then pieces together notions we've never had before.
