There are, however, a limitless number of pictures within a word. Words are shadows and suggestions--they have a formal element, of course, and a denotation. But the visualization of meaning is in no way rigid. If I say the word "chair" to you it might cause you to think about your grandmother's rocking chair and the way she read to you as a child (isn't that sweet?). Or you might think about the chair in your living room that you've had sex on numerous times when your roomate wasn't around. Or you might imagine that you have fixed in your mind the Platonic form of "chair"--a perfect representation of a chair's very chair-ness.
Only a few examples, of course.
That's why reading is essentially a creative processand (perhaps) why the book is almost always better than the movie on which it is based. :)