When I took grade eight French class, I thought the word phoque was the most amazing word. Meaning seal in French, we used it all the time- stories about seals, essays about seals. And yes, you know why. It means seal in French, but the same sounds in English mean sexual acts and profanity.
And that’s a useful secret. Words don’t mean anything. They are used to mean things. They are used to indicate meaning, but they do not have intrinsic meaning. If we decided that red meant blue and blue meant red, nothing would fundamentally change. Nice used to mean somebody less intelligent. Then it was himbo-fied to mean a pleasant dumb person. Then the connotation of dumb was dropped, and now it just means a pleasant person. None of those meanings are inherent, the word gestures at the meaning, it does not retain it.
And so the same set of sounds can mean a sexual act, an aquatic mammal, or a common Vietnamese name.
Professor Harbinger's School for Villains 