> [...] you still have absolutely no idea what it's trying to convey because you're missing some idiom, reference or alternative meaning of one of the words.

This is further exacerbated today where the contexts could be cross-cultural, due to the Internet fostering quicker and communication over borders. I recently ran across a (somewhat off-color) humorous username 「一哭二鬧三上悠亞」: it would have made no sense at all if you only know the Chinese context (first six characters) or the Japanese context (last four characters)! Even though all eight characters are intelligible independently in both Chinese and Japanese.