What does it mean that loss of context is loss of meaning?

Example: A colleague shares a Slack message: 'We need to cut the project.' Alarming — until you learn it was sent during a brainstorming session about scope reduction, not a budget meeting about cancellation. Same seven words, completely different meaning. The context — who said it, when, to whom, about what — was the meaning. The words were just the carrier.

Try this: Find a statistic, quote, or claim you encountered this week that arrived without its original context. Write down the claim, then research and write the three most important pieces of missing context: who produced it, under what conditions, and for what purpose. Notice how the meaning shifts — or collapses — as you reconstruct what was stripped away.