I agree with JoshuaZ, but would add:

English is a compression algorithm, but most of the information required for that algorithm is stored in your brain. Your brain hears the word "apple" and expands it to represent everything that you know about apples. If your brain can't expand "pancreas" as far, that is a characteristic of your brain and not the word.

As is true of software compression algorithms, the purpose of your brain's compression algorithm is to allow you to shrink the size of your knowledge and messages, at the cost of computing time and accuracy.