Unclear use of words lead us to misunderstand what the words are really trying to say. On a daily basis, we don't usually make our words as precise as possible because we know that the people around us can understand so there is no need to make things complicated. But in certain situations such as when your mother tells you "don't spend too much money", you end up spending over that "too much" and your mother gets mad. But you never understood how much was too much because what she said was vague. Vagueness means that something is not being clearly defined or expressed.
"He shot the elephant in his pajamas" Did he shoot the elephant while wearing his pajamas? or did he shoot the elephant that was inside his pajamas... Ambiguity is also a big problem that causes us to understand what the phrase is really trying to say. Misunderstanding a phrase can take us to the wrong idea about something or take us to the complete opposite side of things. Ambiguity is when a word or phrase has at least two specific meanings that make sense in context. Another example would be "I know many Italians". This might confuse us for knowing the language Italian , while you meant to say "I know many Italian people". There is a big difference in the two meanings. And saying that to people, you can be mistaken for being really smart for knowing such a language but what you wanted to say was that you make a lot of friends that are Italian.
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