The word is not the real thing

Why isn’t the word the real thing? The answer is way too simple. The word is not the thing because we can not compare a simple word with an experience. If I say “London” does not mean that I am traveling there. I can read a book of cooking and I can memorize all the recipes but at the moment of the practice I can fail. In every case it is about practice and to have experience. Another example is a person that reads a book about how to become a boxer, he or she learns all about boxing, but in the first ring they fail because they need the experience of how being a boxer feels and they will improve only with practice. We can say that the word does not give you the experience that the word represents.

Another reason why the word is not the thing is that we cannot feel a word or an image. Just by seeing an image of food or reading the word “food” does not mean I will get full. I cannot touch the image or eat eat the meal that is in a image or get full by reading the word “food”... And we can say more and more examples, but the idea is that the word is not the thing itself. The word is just a representation of an object.