“Someone may misunderstand that ants can’t fly.” I read the sentence once again. Is the word cannot, not can? Ants can’t fly. How on earth is it a misunderstanding? It was in a philosophy of language book. I pondered over the sentence. I still couldn’t make sense of it. I thought it was a typing mistake - misprinted can’t instead of can. The sentence was an example to explain a concept, so the example must be chosen carefully. I searched on the internet and learnt that ants could fly! I didn’t know that. I was the someone! Ants can fly one day or so in a year. I had never seen a flying ant or an ant with wings. I had seen some creatures who can fly, but their name did not contain any reference to ants. I thought of them as different creatures. A question arose in my mind - Did I know the word ant? I had seen ants and played with them. I believed that I knew the word ant, and that I understood all the sentences which contain the word ant. This was the first sentence I couldn’t understand because I was not aware of a fact about the insect. The question implies that there are only two states for knowing a word - knowing and not knowing. A word can have several meanings. It can be used metaphorically and influenced by the context. The meaning of a word may change over time. Your knowledge about a word is in degrees, not in two states - knowing and not knowing.