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By: Stephanie,
on 2/13/2008
Blog:
OUPblog
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By Anatoly Liberman
People constantly wonder why understand means what it does. The concept of understanding is highly abstract. It is much easier to say I see (implying that now everything is clear), and I grasp (suggesting that the object is now mine in the literal or figurative sense) than I comprehend the nature and significance of a phenomenon or message. The briefest survey of other languages shows that words for observing (seeing) and seizing (grasping) are often used to express the ideas of comprehension and acquiring knowledge. The idea of “understanding” may also come from “separation”: we sift a mass of things and by sifting discern what they are made of (discern, from Old French, ultimately from Latin dis-cernere, is “to separate”). (more…)
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