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The matter is far more critical than one might immediately surmise, and of the three barriers, it is the misunderstood that most bears upon human relations, the mind and understanding. Indeed, it is the misunderstood word that establishes aptitude or lack of and, frankly, “it’s what psychologists have been trying to test for years without recognizing what it was.” It produces a vast panorama of mental effects, and is the prime factor involved with stupidity. It also determines if one can actually perform a learned skill, and to what degree of proficiency.
In addition to the misunderstood word per se, LRH further distinguishes the undefined or not-comprehended word. Nor, he points out with some emphasis, is the problematic word always obscure or highly technical. On the contrary, it is very often the simple article, preposition or conjunction a student fails to grasp, and that failure is both widespread and insidious. Indeed, batteries of subsequent tests revealed even university graduates incapable of defining such building blocks of the English language as a, the, on and to. While in consequence comes what Ron elsewhere describes as “little discomforts” with the language and thus inabilities to appreciate the shades of meaning embodied in words...which, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph can effectively lead one to misinterpret whole trains of thought.
The ramifications are actually immense; for in citing the misunderstood word, one is factually speaking of the root problem behind all inabilities. Without the misunderstood, one might or might not possess talent, but the capability to perform a skill, would remain uninhibited. Conversely, a misunderstood in any field is followed by an inability to act in that field, which, as LRH notes, explains the glib and seemingly bright student who graduates with honors but without demonstrable skills.
Precisely how the misunderstood word inhibits understanding, and thus ability, is a fascinating subject and bears upon both the essence of linguistics and the whole of the human learning process – how we comprehend words, how we translate words into ideas, and how even a single misunderstood may derail an entire ideological flow. Integral to the matter is the LRH statement on grasping words conceptually, i.e., as symbolized concepts. Thus reading becomes not a matter of correctly pronouncing words, but gaining a clear and true understanding of the meaning embodied in those words. As we shall see, the misunderstood word further bears upon our perception of a subject, our affinity for it, and even our antipathy and aggression towards that which is not understood...as in – and this is no exaggeration – a differing race, culture or political system. Then, too, it is the misunderstood word that ultimately leads to an abandonment of a study and, lest the lesson be missed, the 30 to 50 percent dropout rate plaguing so many American schools.
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