n research concerning study and training done with various groups over the recent past months, it has become all too obvious that a misunderstood word remains misunderstood and will later hang a person up unless he clears the meaning of the word in the context of the materials being read or studied and also clears it in all of its various uses in general communication.
When a word has several different definitions, one cannot limit his understanding of the word to one definition only and call the word “understood.” One must be able to understand the word when, at a later date, it is used in a different way.
To clear a word, one looks it up in a good dictionary.
The first step is to look rapidly over the definitions to find the one which applies to the context in which the word was misunderstood. One reads the definition and uses it in sentences until one has a clear concept of that meaning of the word. This could require ten or more sentences.
Then one clears each of the other definitions of that word, using each in sentences until one has a conceptual understanding of each definition.
The next thing to do is to clear the derivation – which is the explanation of where the word came from originally. This will help gain a basic understanding of the word.
Don’t clear the technical or specialized definitions (math, biology, etc.) or obsolete (no longer used) or archaic (ancient and no longer in general use) definitions unless the word is being used that way in the context where it was misunderstood.
Most dictionaries give the idioms of a word. An idiom is a phrase or expression whose meaning cannot be understood from the ordinary meanings of the words. For example, “give in” is an English idiom meaning “yield.” Quite a few words in English have idiomatic uses and these are usually given in a dictionary after the definitions of the word itself. These idioms have to be cleared.
One must also clear any other information given about the word, such as notes on its usage, synonyms, etc., so as to have a full understanding of the word.
If one encounters a misunderstood word or symbol in the definition of a word being cleared, one must clear it right away using this same procedure and then return to the definition one was clearing. (Dictionary symbols and abbreviations are usually given in the front of the dictionary.)
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