Word: misunderstoodness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Farming, which took shape in the Old World around 8,000 B.C. and in the New World a few millenniums later, is a much misunderstood meme. Anthropologists sometimes call it an "energy technology," since food does, after all, energize us; but farming may have originally mattered more as a kind of information-processing technology. By radically increasing the human population that a given acre could support, farming sped up the synergistic exchange of cultural information, lubricating innovation; it packed lots of neurons together, raising both the size and the efficiency of social brains...
...presents himself as a lovable, nerdy, self-made billionaire, but consider the facts. Having bludgeoned the companies that threatened him, Gates now poses as a man whose only joy is promoting innovation and competition. If his practices aren't monopolistic, then John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould were just misunderstood capitalists. JACK MORROW Long Beach, Calif...
Egyptians are particularly incensed that just three words, in circumstances difficult to interpret, could point to suicide. The words may have been totally misunderstood. El-Batouti was just as likely to be expressing concern at some emergency when he spoke. The phrase was no solemn invocation of death but an everyday expression among Egyptians, murmured at the start of many a mundane task. Suicide defies the holiest precepts of Islam, and for Egyptians it brings unthinkable shame to family and nation. "You can't jump to conclusions from someone quoting the Koran and say this was more than an accident...
...medical jargon for high-functioning individuals. Founder Ken Steele, who for 32 years wandered across America homeless and schizophrenic, feels that the most formidable task for the mentally ill is overcoming the social stigma. "The public's synonym for us is still psycho," he says. "We are feared and misunderstood." Partly to counter this, individuals with mental illness call themselves "consumers"--an emotionally neutral word meant to suggest people who consume medications and services associated with psychiatric disability. A voting effort, for example, is called a consumer-registration drive; psychosocial rehabilitation is considered consumer-driven...
...consent suggested for readers under 18." The warning reflects the suggestiveness of the half-clothed models, and perhaps refers in large part to one photo of a topless girl. Above the label on the cover, an Abercrombie-outfitted, buff young man stares through thick black-rimmed glasses, looking decidedly misunderstood sipping from a mug advertising a budget travel agency. The reader is left to his or her own devices to assume that, after spending hundreds of dollars on his sweatshirt and vest, the poor young man was forced to cut a few corners while backpacking through Europe...