Milo is again confused here by the homophones “witch” and “which.” To be fair, using “which” in this context is as ridiculous as everything else in Dictionopolis; there’s no way he could’ve prepared to meet a Which in the real world. But as Faintly Macabre introduces herself, Milo starts to learn not to make assumptions. She looks like a perfectly nice old lady and, at the very least, doesn’t look like the terrifying witch Milo seemed to expect—her name suggests that she is only “faintly macabre,” or slightly scary. And she supports the novel’s insistence that people should, whenever possible, try to learn something.