"What is a word," you ask, "if not synonymous with that to which it refers?"
Lewis Carroll answered this thus in "Through the Looking Glass":
-----"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you. The name of the song is called 'HADDOCKS' EYES.'"
-----"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
-----"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is CALLED. The name really IS 'THE AGED AGED MAN.'"
-----"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the SONG is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
-----"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called 'WAYS AND MEANS': but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!"
-----"Well, what IS the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
-----"I was coming to that," the Knight said. `The song really IS 'A-SITTING ON A GATE': and the tune's my own invention."
