I’ll have to make up some excuse for why I’m late.

They often argue, but they always make up soon afterwards.

Let me just finish putting on my make-up and then we can go.

I’m often impressed by the economy of the English language.

Here we see the basic phrase being used in three very different ways: twice as a phrasal verb, and once as a noun. The meanings are quite different: to create a fiction from scratch, to reconcile, and facial cosmetics (and the phrase can also be used as a noun to refer to what something consists of).

And yet, despite these differences in meaning, we never get confused about which meaning of the phrase is being used. Of course that’s largely thanks to context. From each of the three sentences above, the situation is quite clear, and therefore the meaning of the phrase.

But, if they’re so different, why not use different words and phrases, rather than just repeating make up? The main reason is simply that, despite these differences, make up still works perfectly well to convey the meaning in each case. If you make up a story, you make it from scratch. You start with nothing and build it up from there. Similarly, if you make up with someone, you’ve caused some damage to your relationship, like knocking down part of a brick wall. By reconciling, you’re repairing this damage, building the wall up again by placing one brick on top of another. Applying make-up might be slightly different (though for some people there’s not a huge difference between making themselves up and bricklaying), but the same basic idea remains. You’re making your design, and you’re building it up, layer upon layer (or just one layer, but you’re still building up from your skin).

Of course we could still use different words or phrases, but think about how much harder it would be to remember all that, especially if we did that for every case in English in which we use the same word or phrase with multiple meanings. Our vocabulary would quickly become much too unwieldy. Instead it’s much easier to use the same phrase for different contexts which share the same basic meaning. And that’s how language works anyway: whenever a new situation crops up that we need to label, we look around to see if there are any pre-existing words or phrases that will do the job. Fake news. Hashtag. Omnishambles. They’re all just repackaging old words and prefixes to meet the demand of new situations. So used are we to reusing language that when a daring visionary comes up with an entirely new word, it astounds us.

It’s interesting to think about how many basic ideas there are. Just as people claim there are only three basic stories, perhaps there are only certain basic concepts that express through language. I don’t find that limiting at all though. I think it’s a testament to our creativity, and ability to recognise patterns, that we can take these basic ideas, and use them to easily describe an entire universe.