Why Use Double Quotes around Variables in Bash?

Using double quotes never really made much sense until I tried this

First, set $x

x='-e h\ti'

Now look at these results

command	result	effective command	comment
echo $x	h i	echo -e h\ti	A variable can be used to specify options, such a -e in this case.
echo "$x"	-e h\ti	echo '-e h\ti'	Double quotes around the variable prevent it from being used in options.