Clarity

Geoffrey Pullum at Language Log, in the course of a discussion of the incredibly flexible verb see, writes

I wonder how and why human languages seem to be so completely content with the wild and multifarious polysemy and ambiguity that afflicts them. The people who think clarity involves lack of ambiguity, so we have to strive to eliminate all multiple meanings and should never let a word develop a new sense... they simply don't get it about how language works, do they?