Cross-cultural communication is always about meaning and such meanings are always resident in people and not just in the mere words. In a recent article relating to the same concept of interpretive nuances of meanings of words in people, Raja Petra Kamaruddin (RPK) wrote:

“For example, when you say someone is a fundamentalist, you may actually mean that he or she is an extremist - whereas to the person in question a fundamentalist is someone who follows the true and fundamental teachings of the religion. Therefore, to the first person, a fundamentalist is a negative thing (something not quite right with that person’s brain) whereas to the second it is positive (they are a purist).