It looks like the problem the author is struggling with is vocab-as-meaning vs vocab-as-etymology. She complains that english creates new words for everything; "bus", "envelope", etc, but we really tend to re-use words for different but allegorical meanings all the time. I'm sure all the readers here are familiar with at least one meaning of 'bus' that has nothing to with wheels. And the noun 'envelope' would be, I think, a pretty easy word to guess if you saw it in context and were already familiar with the verb 'envelop'.