I’ve been frequently using the phrase during the past week and plausibly left some people questioning on what it means. Truth be told, it has no meanings.

According to Dictionary.com, the word ‘word’, means:

A unit of language, consisting one or more spoken sounds or their written representation that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.

It is punctuated that a word per se is a ‘carrier of meaning’. Nevertheless, this ‘meaning’ does not have to be explicit. In other words, there are words whose meaning hides somewhere between layers of understanding. Human kind is such an interesting species that can, believe it or not, communicate without basic agreement on which means what.

Take, ‘alamak’, for instance. No Indonesian nor Malaysian can help you comprehend what it means. However, each and everyone of them knows when they can use such expression. We have gah, meh, woot, and more words to tell people that you’re surprised, words to show people that you’re amazed, but we can’t actually define what these words ‘mean’.

It is the privilege of human beings to acquire and use complex systems of communication–way more complicated than a bee-dance is–and it’s called language. Be proud to have it.